


Pentagrams and Pomegranates - Part II: Love is an Hourglass

by Gabihime



Series: Pentagrams and Pomegranates [2]
Category: Magical Diary
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Angels, Demons, F/M, Forced Marriage, Genderqueer Character, Living Together, Magic, Oaths & Vows, Older Man/Younger Woman, Teacher-Student Relationship, Witches, Wizards
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-01-04 04:15:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 287,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabihime/pseuds/Gabihime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marriage is such exquisite bliss, or so the brochure claims.  At Revane Cottage during the long summer holiday, Amoretta struggles to understand what it means to be Hieronymous Grabiner’s wife.  Chapters with explicit content are marked as such.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Not Everything Is Better Spoken Aloud

The morning was very pale and still and the dew was still heavy on the grass as two figures stood in silent contemplation - not of one another, but of something else entirely. Amoretta Grabiner's face was lost in the shadow of the deep hood she wore, and her arms were folded inside her borrowed cloak. She was staring silently at a stone set into the ground before her. Behind her, his own arms folded, his face expressionless, stood her husband.

When Amoretta spoke, her voice sounded slight and it wandered, as if she didn't know whether she ought to be laughing or crying.

"It seems to me," she said, "That stories always either begin or end with weddings or funerals."

Her smile surfaced for a moment, brief and uncertain, and then disappeared again as if sinking into deep water. Grabiner, standing behind her, could not see the troubles as they played across her face, but he could feel them radiating from her slight body, even without the benefit of a spell to augment his perceptions.

"This is neither a wedding nor a funeral," he reminded her quietly. "That girl's been buried for almost two months now," he said.

They were both standing in the village cemetery before a new gravestone, one that stood silvery and fresh, not yet weathered by years of rain and wind.

It was two days after the end of the spring term, and they were in the village cemetery at Amoretta's express request. Grabiner hadn't been willing to take her on such a morbid outing until after the school term had finished, as he felt she had enough to worry about without heaping yet more troubles in her little basket, but this morning he had run out of excuses, and so they had gone, leaving without even breakfast.

Amoretta pensively studied the stone in front of her.

_Here lies Rebecca Elizabeth Blair, June 4, 1987 - March 12, 2003, May you find the peace that you sought._

There were cards on the grave, and a stuffed bear with a tag that read 'We miss you, sissy.' The flowers were artificial, but they were as fresh as such things can be, and placed with some care: calla lilies and eucalyptus stems and pampas grass all tied round with a pink silk ribbon. Like the stone itself, the flowers hadn't had time to weather. Amoretta was sure that the hearts of the bereaved, those who Rebecca Blair had been left behind, had not yet weathered either. The presence of the new flowers attested to that. She was acting as a witness to those whose wounds were so fresh they could not be ignored, they could not be put aside. In time, this girl would fade into the past, as the dead always do, but for now she was still a very real presence in the world.

She was still looked for at breakfast, missed at bedtimes, still mourned for during regular, common activities. There was now silence when there had been smiles and laughter. Inevitably besides family she had left behind classmates and friends. There was a small toy unicorn with a ribbon around its neck on the flat part of the gravestone. That seemed like something a friend might leave. Amoretta's own contribution was a small bouquet of lavender, picked from the school grounds and tied with a white ribbon. She laid it down next to the unicorn.

Rebecca Blair would never graduate from high school. She would never experience the excitement and anxiety of her first week at college, never struggle to make her rent in her first apartment, never take those first few terrifying steps into the adult world. She was dead, and therefore completely frozen in time.

Amoretta would never know this girl who had walked on the green grass or looked up at the endless sky, because that time had passed away. She knew only - as humans do - that this girl had laughed and cried and played jokes and been serious, if not in the same ways that Amoretta did, at least in a way that would be immediately recognizable.

So it was impossible for Amoretta to look at the grave and not see her own death.

Amoretta contemplated the lily bouquet and shook her head slightly.

"When I die," she said, "I hope you won't put lilies on the grave. Lilies are nice and all," she seemed to be at something of a loss, because she did not want to call the sentiments of Rebecca Blair's family into question, even if she could not be fond of them herself. "But I'd rather have something with color: bluebells or hydrangeas - or maybe chrysanthemums. Lots and lots of golden chrysanthemums, in a big horseshoe," she made an expansive movement with her arms, "Like they'd give to the winner of an important horse race. I guess when I die, I want the sentiment to be 'Congratulations! You are dead!' I really don't want people to moon about me despondently."

"When you die, I won't be putting anything on the grave, Amoretta," Grabiner reminded, and she could feel the quiet note of relief in his voice even without turning to look at him. He was strangely grateful for this small kindness. When she was dead, he could not long linger after.

She laughed, and it sounded strange in her ears. "I know," she said, and she twisted the band of gold around her finger slightly, feeling the bite of metal against her flesh as she did so. "Oh, I know, I know. I was just playing pretend, I guess, playing pretend funeral on someone else's grave. That's very gruesome, isn't it? That's very cruel." She bowed her head and studied her own shoes.

"Amoretta," Grabiner's voice was quiet and patient. "You aren't responsible for this girl's death. You know that."

She nodded briefly, but she did not look up.

"I can't help but think," she said quietly, "That this might have been me, that this  _would_ have been me, if not for you," she turned to look over her shoulder and briefly gave him her fleeting smile. "This girl, she had a name, friends, family, people who loved her - and all I can think about is myself, how  _glad_ I am that I didn't die that night, even though it means that  _she did._ This girl died because of me, and I've never even cried for her. I cry all the time. I cry when it rains, or I stub my big toe, or I'm afraid of something, but I only ever cry for myself. I'm very wicked. You think I'm such a marvelous person, but really, I'm awful. I'm mean and I'm petty. All I care about is myself."

"You once told me that you were happy to admit that you were selfish, because being selfish was human," Grabiner said. "Amoretta,  _he_ killed this girl. She was dead before he came for you. You had nothing to do with it."

"Professor Potsdam says - " Amoretta began, staring hard at the ground.

"Damn it all, whatever she says," Grabiner interjected with startling intensity, throwing his arm out. "You are  _not_ responsible for this. A victim should not be made to feel guilty because a murderer decides to choose a different target."

Amoretta looked up, briefly, but then her eyes dropped to the ground again.

"I didn't stop him," she said. "I never noticed what it was he was doing."

Grabiner's reply was subdued. "I didn't either," he pointed out. "I was blind,  _willfully_ blind, until it was too late. Even if I might not have saved this girl, if I had acted as I should have done, then you would at least have been spared this misery - "

"Hieronymous," Amoretta interjected, turning to put her hands on his arm. "That wasn't your fault - "

" _And this isn't yours_ ," he insisted passionately, his dark eyes fierce and heavy. "You can forgive me dozens of times, over and over again, but you must learn to forgive  _yourself_."

Amoretta sighed and leaned her forehead against his arm. "That's the hard part," she admitted with a weak smile.

Grabiner made a grunting sound that indicated that he agreed with her.

"Her friends, her family, the people who loved her, they won't ever know, will they?," she asked anxiously, her eyes dropping to study the stone again. "They'll never know what she felt, why all of this happened, why she's buried here - "

"To them it's a suicide," Grabiner agreed, keeping his voice low, although the cemetery was deserted at this hour. "They all believe she hung herself in an abandoned barn." Grabiner looked away at the wrought iron fence that bounded the cemetery from the street. "The wretch cleaned up what remained of the ritual himself before coming back to school, as cool as you please. Because we caught it so early there were only a few memories to alter. I believe the headmistress handled it herself. She's very good," he could not help but sound distant, "At handling things like that."

Amoretta looked up at him then.

"Like death, you mean?" she asked, folding her small hands over her chest. "It isn't the first death to do with the school, is it Hieronymous?"

Grabiner would not meet her eyes, but he briefly shook his head. "It is not. That is the nature of the witch world. Being a witch is dangerous, and sometimes there are fatal accidents," he answered simply. "But this is the first time in a very long time that something's happened to someone from the village."

She turned back to look at the gravestone.

"They ought to know," she said. "They ought to know that she didn't kill herself. I mean, it would have been bad enough if she had. It's terrible to feel so alone, like things are so broken that they can't ever be fixed, like there's no way out for you, and all you want to do is walk away, and keep walking forever, all you want is to hide in the safety of not-being. Those are the feelings that come before suicide: that awful, empty hopelessness, and a desperate desire to kill the pain," Amoretta spoke haltingly and Grabiner was silent as he studied her small shape, almost lost in the cloak she wore.

"But Rebecca Blair didn't choose death. Even if she did feel alone, even if she didn't fit in well, even if she thought she was strange and different from everyone else, she didn't choose death. Someone chose death for her. The death of any young person, particularly a child, is awful, I think. I've read that it's the worst feeling in the world, having to bury your own child, like you bury your hopes and dreams for the future with them. But she didn't kill herself, not really. She didn't choose death. I don't know what Damien told her," Amoretta murmured to herself, absently putting one hand over the dark handprint on her shoulder, "But I can  _imagine_. He can be very persuasive. It's like he exerts this  _pressure_ on you and you can feel all this loneliness and yearning from him, like all he wants is comfort, and you're the only one who can give it to him - " Amoretta's wandering monologue stopped abruptly, as if she suddenly remembered that Grabiner was listening to her. She shook her head. "She didn't hang herself. She was killed. You can call it manslaughter or whatever you want, like she was killed by a drunk driver, but she didn't commit suicide. Rebecca Blair made a choice, but I'm sure it wasn't a choice to die. Her family, her friends, they should  _know_ that - "

"They can't," Grabiner reminded her with a faint undertone of urgency in his voice. He moved behind her and put his hands on her arms, gripping her first gently, and then more firmly, as if his touch were the physical representation of his resolution. "They can never know. If she had lived through the experience,  _she_ would not be allowed to know. She would carry the scars on her heart and on her soul, but she would not be allowed to retain the memory, the  _understanding_ of where they had come from."

"What an impossible feeling," Amoretta said quietly, bowing her head. "To know your heart aches, to know your body aches, to have the idea that  _something_ terrible happened to you, but to never be able to put your hands on it - " Amoretta closed her eyes and frowned. "What right does anyone have of taking away someone else's memories?" she wanted to know. "Their pain? Their sorrows? Their love? It locks a part of them away - no maybe it's worse than that. It  _obliterates_ a part of them. All we can claim to be is the sum total of our memories, of our experiences. That's what makes us  _ourselves_."

"It's not as simple as that. We are more than our memories," Grabiner disagreed quietly. "Even if something is erased from your recollection, your behavior has already been shaped by it. Even if it's been removed from your memory, it hasn't been removed from the world. It still happened. You still changed. The world, even in some small way, still changed. Evidence still exists, even if others try to remove it. You would still act as you act, you just wouldn't know why. You would still be yourself, you would just lack your footing. Human beings always need footing. In the absence of footing, the human mind invents new footing to suit where it believes it ought to stand. That's one of the most difficult things about altering memories. Perhaps it would be easier for people if we could just erase things from their psyche entirely. It would be less painful, I think."

"It might be less painful, but I bet it would end up causing more damage," Amoretta said, her mouth a thin line. She pulled out of his hands and knelt in front of the gravestone, placing her fingers on its smooth, cool face. "If you touch an open flame, you get burned. It hurts. You don't touch it anymore. But if someone removes the memory, if someone removes the  _knowledge_ that fire burns, you'll just keep burning yourself over and over again, until you're allowed to keep the memory, to keep the knowledge," Amoretta finished, standing again, and wrapping her own arms around herself.

"Witches count on the improbability of such situations recurring," he said. "It's not foolproof, but it ends up having acceptable margins of loss. Besides that, it keeps the body count very low. This isn't the first death to do with the school," Grabiner admitted, "But it is rare that we lose a student to death, and even more rare that we lose a mundane."

"You lose them to something else instead," she said quietly, and Grabiner could not deny it. "Their memories are blotted out, and then they're turned loose into their lives without all the pieces that make it up. No one has the right to do that to another person."

"Probably not," Grabiner agreed, although he did not move toward her. "And yet it is done, every day, all over the world." This was a subject on which he could give her no comfort. There was no comfort to be had.

"No wonder Ellen decided that it was best to cut ties with her family," Amoretta said quietly, studying the stone before her. "It must be maddening, to remember things that your loved ones  _can't_ remember. Part of the space in their brains that you used to occupy, it's all eaten up with nothingness, or worse, with invented memories, memories that can never be yours because they never happened. I think I understand why when witches and wizards do have romances with regular, ordinary people that the love affairs are generally so short. It would be too painful otherwise: like falling in love with someone who's guaranteed to suffer from degenerative dementia."

"That's the price of the velvet curtain," Grabiner agreed quietly. "It is very difficult for witches to have meaningful relationships with those outside the arcane world. That is the price of magic: isolation."

Amoretta's brows drew together. "But why is that the price of magic? Why can't witches and regular people live openly with one another? Why can't Rebecca Blair's family know why she died? Why is there a velvet curtain in the first place?"

"Because that's the way it is," Grabiner answered flatly. "Rather than risk exposure, risk being herded together into ghettos, risk being executed, risk being called to fight wars, risk fighting wars ourselves, we hide ourselves away, we cover our tracks, we erase our presence. That is the choice we have made as a people: non-engagement, and we have made that choice for a very good reason. An individual witch may be remarkably powerful, but there simply aren't very many of us. Even if the entire population of witches in the world were suddenly obliterated, humanity would continue on without even a hiccup, without even taking notice. We are a negligible minority. We act as we do as a way of preserving our way of life, and because we do not wish to be killed."

"We hurt other people to protect ourselves," Amoretta said sadly. "We have no right to do that."

"We do it to survive," said Grabiner. "It may be ugly, but it is necessary."

"We do it because we're  _afraid_ ," Amoretta disagreed with some force, then she shook her head again, as if her doubts weighed her down. "Why are we so afraid? Why are we so convinced we'll be reviled and hated?" she asked, looking up at the pale sky. "Why do we hide?"

"Why do you hide?" Grabiner asked her softly. It was a question to which he still had no real answers, but it was an undeniable truth: Amoretta was hiding from  _something_.

Amoretta ducked her head.

"I hide," she began haltingly, "Because I was taught to hide."

Grabiner put his hand on her shoulder gently and squeezed it.

"We hide," he said, "Because we were taught to hide."

* * *

Noir Suzerain stayed a week at Iris Academy, and so Amoretta and Grabiner stayed on an additional week as well, although he indicated that the cottage was more or less ready for habitation. She spent most of the week in her father's company, as they were both entertained by the headmistress. Ellen, after overcoming the fear that she wasn't wanted, also spent a great deal of time with them, and at last relaxed and opened up, particularly over evening games of Scrabble. They had multiple tours of the school, half a dozen picnics, lawn games, parlor games, and every other diversion that Petunia Potsdam could invent to help pass the time more easily.

Grabiner put in occasional appearances at these entertainments, but generally seemed to have other things to occupy him. The day after their cemetary trip, Amoretta realized that he was busy carefully moving his library from one location to another.

"I could help," she volunteered, worried about leaving him to tedious work, although she did not really relish reorganizing several thousand books when she might have been playing cards or going on picnics.

"Go along and visit with your father," Grabiner reassured her. "I can handle this well enough on my own. Besides - " he said.

Her smile had quirked up at the corner in response. "You'd rather be among your books than spending the day with my father, right?" she asked, leaning forward winsomely.

He sat on his heels amid piles of carefully organized books.

"You are righter than the rain," he agreed seriously as he looked up at her.

She sighed and threw up her hands in mock resignation.

"All right, all right," she relented. "I'll look after my father and you look after the books."

"Each to his talents," Grabiner agreed, dropping his eyes to study the books before him again.

Amoretta tweaked the peak of his hat, but he waved her off without looking up.

"Go on now," he shooed her off, "Before that woman tries to invite me on another picnic where I am forced to nibble tea sandwiches while attending to Mr. Phifer's chronic nosebleeds."

"Hieronymous, you  _are_ awful," Amoretta said categorically as she stood in the doorway to their rooms looking back at him. He was nearly lost amid the boxes of books.

"That is part of my charm," he agreed and then waved her out a final time.

* * *

After exactly seven days of building heartwarming family memories with his daughter and his elusive son-in-law, Noir Suzerain departed just as unexpectedly as he had arrived.

One morning at breakfast he had his suitcase packed and waiting at his ankle.

"Oh, but you haven't seen the house yet!" Amoretta had protested, tugging on her father's arm. Grabiner had been putting off showing the house until the books were entirely moved and everything was in final order.

"I imagine it'll still be here the next time I visit," Noir hazarded, and Amoretta was forced to agree with him. "Gotta go," he assured her, "Buy-in's tomorrow, but I'll be back later in the summer, when the schedule's cooler."

"Ah," Amoretta realized with a start. "It's the World Series, isn't it?"

"It is that time of year," Noir agreed as he leaned against a long wooden cafeteria table, sipping at a cup of coffee.

Amoretta bit her lip. "I hope I haven't thrown off your game. I'm sure it was a lot of trouble coming out here right before the World Series - "

"You're always trouble," Noir chuckled into his coffee mug, "But it's the kind of trouble I like. Besides, I wouldn't have been able to keep my head straight if I hadn't made sure things were all right with you." He shook his head briefly. "After all, it is my solemn duty because - " he waved his hand to her idly.

Amoretta clapped one hand over her heart and snapped her heels together as she declared, "Because I am the littlest Suzerain."

"That's right, and don't forget it, kid," Noir said, giving her a familiar wink. She hugged him tightly and he nodded his head once as he looked down at her. "Give my regards to your absentee husband, and tell the boys I'm sorry that I missed them, but I'm pretty well acquainted now with their wake up hour, and I can't stay on until noon." He turned to the headmistress as he put on his hat and bowed his head to her briefly. "Ms. Potsdam."

"You are welcome back at any time, Mr. Suzerain," Petunia Potsdam said with a gracious smile, "Just do keep in mind what I told you."

"Yes, ma'am," Noir Suzerain said with a wave. His keen eyes shifted to Ellen, who had risen from her spot at the table and was also ready to see him off.

"It was very nice to meet you, Mr. Suzerain," Ellen said very politely, extending her hand for a shake.

Instead he reached out and mussed her carefully combed hair, causing her to flush and stammer.

"Consider yourself annexed," he said. "You and Junior became suzerainties this time. Watch out," he warned. "It means Christmas presents, but it also means trouble."

Amoretta laughed, moving forward to take the flustered Ellen's arm. "It's all right," she reassured her father with a wink. "It's the kind of trouble we like."

Noir snapped his fingers once in appreciation of the joke as he took a step backward, looking at the three women who stood clustered at one end of the mostly empty cafeteria. He grinned, and it was an easy smile, although it was an uncommon one.

He pointed at his daughter one last time. "Write," he commanded. "And no long silences this time, or I'll start to think you went and married another half a dozen depressed englishmen."

"I'll write," Amoretta promised with a laugh.

And with that, Noir Suzerain departed from their lives.

* * *

By the time the week of sentimental family bonding had quite finished, Grabiner had done with moving all the books in the library, as well as both of their trunks. They were reduced to living out of what amounted to an overnight bag, and Amoretta thrilled, because she knew that she would be introduced to her new home in short order.

Grabiner had been very mysterious about it, refusing her entry until 'everything was ready.' She expected he wanted it to be the same sort of surprise that their evening at the May Day ball had been. She could wait, because he was clearly working hard for her express benefit, for her pleasure, for her delight - although she was burning up with anticipation to see what it was that he was preparing.

Before he allowed that they were ready to depart from Iris Academy entirely, Grabiner owned that he had one final errand to run, and this time he agreed that she could accompany him. They were going, he said,  _into the city._

For Amoretta, this was all terribly exciting. She hadn't gone much of anywhere since arriving at Iris Academy the previous September, apart from her Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations, which had been spent exclusively at the little New Hampshire farmhouse. At school, trips to the local shopping mall had been the limit of her excursions. There was also the  _company_ to consider. Apart from one evening at the Glen, their brief adventures centered on the national lottery, and the recent cemetery trip, Amoretta hadn't really been anywhere with Grabiner.

It was thrilling simply to go somewhere  _with her husband._  He might have taken her with him to get the brakes inspected on the school's shuttle vans and she would have considered this trip to have been glamorous and dazzling.

Fortunately, although their ultimate destination was left undisclosed, it seemed to likely be more exciting than a trip to the nearest Jiffy Lube.

"Wear some shoes that will be comfortable to walk in," Grabiner advised. "Otherwise your feet will hurt by the time we're finished with our errands."

So Amoretta dutifully put on her most comfortable shoes - the well-worn brown shoes she wore regularly during school hours - and then dressed to match them. She had just finished braiding the mass of her hair back neatly when she looked up to realize that Grabiner wasn't wearing his familiar brown robes. Instead, he was wearing a long coat of dark dove grey. It was a simple enough ensemble: trousers, a shirt and vest, and the duster length jacket which might have been called a robe if it had been worn closed, but it was considerably more sophisticated a look than Amoretta was used to. It was a little startling to see him in something other than brown, but it certainly suited him.

In fact, in her green kilt and blouse, with scuffed shoes and braided hair, she felt rather plain beside him. She wondered if she ought to change, and then reflected that she had nothing to change into. In any case, no matter how she dressed she wasn't likely to pair well with him. Ellen had told her that they looked as if they belonged with one another, and while Amoretta quite desperately wanted to believe that this was true, she sincerely doubted it. Perhaps they looked as if they suited one another on the campus, where he was certainly a professor and she was inescapably a student, but out in the wilds of the rest of the world, he would be a carelessly well-dressed, attractive gentleman, while she could be nothing other than what she was: a short, underdeveloped schoolgirl with bruised knees and braided hair.

But she pushed these thoughts out of her head. She could not help what she was, and he seemed to like her regardless. She could not change herself from a pigeon into a peacock, and so there was very little point in dwelling on it.

There was no denying that he looked very nice, and was quite to her taste.

Amoretta complimented him and he gave her an amused smile as he put his hat carefully on his head and pulled it down so it sat correctly.

"I know it's absolutely shocking, but I'm not really a school master all year round, you know," he said. "I don't always dress to muck around in dungeons and oversee detentions."

"But you've always run all your errands in your brown robes before," she pointed out.

"Generally a matter of convenience," he said. "I am not a quick change artist. When I have to teach and also have errands to run, it's too much trouble to change several times a day. That's a luxury of the idle and indolent, and I have recently been on a very tight schedule. Besides," he said, cocking an eyebrow at her, "Due to the activities of individuals who shall remain nameless, I haven't had a free weekend since the beginning of the fall term."

"If you were an optimist, you would consider yourself popular rather than plagued," Amoretta suggested with a quirk of her mouth as she tucked her chin down.

"If this is popularity then I would rather be an outcast," Grabiner said with a dismissive flick of his wrist.

She was now standing very close before him, and considering him carefully. She reached up to straighten his collar, although it certainly did not need straightening. People who are very fond of each other often make up the slightest reasons to touch one another. At last she nodded in approval, but not before asking a last question.

"No cloak?" she asked, although the point was a little moot. Grabiner had already moved his familiar grey cloak to their new residence.

Grabiner tapped her lightly on the nose with a finger, "Generally, one does not wear an overcoat in the middle of May. Wizards are a bit eccentric, but they're not  _deranged_."

She had to grant that, and soon they were off down the neatly laid paths of the academy, toward the outer circle where the school's automobiles were parked, Amoretta practically bouncing on her heels.

Surprisingly, Grabiner did not lead her to one of the familiar vans that the school used for transportation. Instead, he led her to a very singular vehicle. It was dun colored, and had more than its fair share of dings and scratches, which was probably to be expected, since it looked to be more than fifty years old. It had large wheels with deep tread, a flat, slotted grill across the front, round headlamps like eyes, and a low, collapsible windshield.

It was an old army jeep, and it looked like it had been plucked right from the middle of the North African Campaign against Rommel and then deposited in the Iris Academy parking circle. It didn't have any doors, and its roof was a canopy that could be pulled over an otherwise bare frame. Amoretta had never seen such a car outside of a museum.

"Well," she said, looking at it in wonder. "This is certainly  _interesting_."

Grabiner chuckled at her response to the car. "It's Rail's," he explained. "He's given us the use of it for the summer, which is very generous of him."

"Is it even street legal?" Amoretta asked with a laugh, and Grabiner shrugged, a half smile at the corner of his mouth.

"Rail's never been pulled over while driving it," he said. "It's properly licensed and insured. I suppose that's something."

"Did he rob a military history museum?" Amoretta's laughter was unfettered as she climbed into the old jeep, which had worn and patched leather seats. She had to hunt about for the safety belts, which she at last found. She was adventurous, but not adventurous enough to go riding around in an open sixty year old vehicle without wearing a seatbelt, no matter what she thought of Grabiner's driving. It was a little like belting herself into a roller coaster car, and she had the urge to press her feet against the floorboards and raise her arms over her head as she whooped, although she refrained from doing so. They were still stationary, after all.

"As far as I understand it, he's owned this contraption since the late forties," Grabiner explained as he turned the small, flat head key in the ignition. "Rather than robbing a museum, he might well have robbed an army base."

The engine of the jeep chortled a bit, and then roared to life.

"Well, I hope we aren't arrested for theft of military property," Amoretta hollered over the sound of the engine.

"If we are, we'll just refer them to Rail," Grabiner reassured her, although he also had to raise his voice to be heard over the sound of the engine. "After all,  _he_ stole it. We're just borrowing it. It's perfectly legal to  _borrow_ stolen property."

After a moment's thought, he took off his hat and pressed it into her hands.

"Hold onto it," he advised, then turned to look over his shoulder as he backed out onto the circle drive.

Riding in the old army jeep was a considerable adventure. It made all sorts of unusual noises that Amoretta was certain that a car ought not to make, and although it had good shocks, she was still obliged to brace her feet against the floorboards whenever they went over bumpy stretches of road, because the seat was a simple leather bench without much in the way of padding. It made her Uncle Carmine's old farm truck seem like the height of luxury. The farm truck, at the very least, had doors  _and_ an AM radio.

But as different as the experience of riding in the jeep was, Amoretta found herself enjoying it a great deal. They rarely went faster than forty miles an hour, and they stayed entirely on county and state roads. The open nature of the front of the jeep meant the wind was always in her face, and she was glad that she had braided her hair back, rather than having it flying all over the place, and potentially blinding Grabiner.

About half an hour into the drive, Grabiner complained about the glare from the sun, and produced a pair of sunglasses from under the dash. They had gleaming, mirrored aviator lenses.

When he put them on, Amoretta ended up laughing hysterically into his hat, nearly losing it to the wind in the process.

"Care to share what you find so  _awfully_ hilarious?" he asked dryly.

"Those sunglasses are right out of the nineteen seventies," she laughed. "I feel like I'm in an episode of CHiPs. Please officer," she begged, tugging on his arm, "Don't give me a ticket. I had no idea I was going four hundred miles an hour."

"Very hilarious," Grabiner commented dryly. "I suggest you bear with it, Lo," he advised. "The sunglasses came part and parcel with the jeep."

"Well, you're just as handsome as a highway patrolman. You only need a thick black mustache to complete the look, and then I'd be absolutely overjoyed to have you read me my rights," Amoretta reassured him, shouting to be heard over the wind and the engine.

Grabiner, by now wise to her antics, shouted back, "I'm half-tempted to grow a mustache just to torment you - and you would be tormented, trust me," he insisted. "There is a reason that I endeavor to stay entirely clean shaven. My facial hair does not grow with anything resembling regularity or grace. Some people wear it well. I wear it like a man who's just spent eight years trying to dig out of the Chateau d'If with a broken spoon, ornamented by random stray whiskers growing out of the most unlikely places. If I didn't shave I'd end up looking like a blind man scored my face with a grease pencil, and that would certainly put you in your place."

"Well then, please don't," Amoretta laughed. "I don't want to be responsible for bringing such a calamity on the students of Iris Academy as ruining your prettiness."

"Thank you," he bellowed back, "That's certainly a heroic sacrifice on your part."

It was about two hours drive along narrow country roads, under the dense, fragrant trees. They didn't seem to be heading to any population center that Amoretta knew of, and she was quite confused when they at last turned onto a narrow gravel road. She thought they were somewhere in the middle of the state, far from any urban population. She'd been following their progress on an old map that she'd found folded up in a pocket underneath the dashboard.

At the end of the road was a simple frame house, certainly old, but quite ordinary looking.

Grabiner turned the engine off and pocketed the key, stowing the awful sunglasses back under the dash. As he got out of the jeep and stretched his legs, he glanced around the grassy lawn idly.

"Looks like we're the only ones, at the moment," he said.

Amoretta looked around herself at this prompting, and noticed that there did seem to be an abnormal number of tire tracks in the yard of this lonely house in the middle of nowhere.

"Hieronymous, where  _are_ we going?" she demanded, shifting from foot to foot. It was very difficult for her to contain her curiosity.

"I told you," he said, clearly amused by her agitation. "We're going to the city." Suddenly a thought seemed to cross his mind and he paused. "Oh, before I forget," he said.

He fished his wallet out of his pockets, and took from it a crisp laminated card. He passed it to her. It had her name on it, along with some other basic information, and when she held it between her fingers, the letters seemed to glow: a telltale magical reaction.

"Put that in your wallet and make sure to keep it with you. You're not likely to need it, but one never knows," he said.

"Is this some sort of witch license?" she wanted to know. It was certainly an ID card, but it was like none she had ever seen before. It had no picture at all, but it did list a home address: Iris Academy. It identified her as being a citizen of Green Mountain Territory, in the Free Nations. She was listed as 'Class IIM,' whatever that meant.

"It's your new identification card," Grabiner said. "Getting all that verified and approved took some time. Regulations in this country are generally very lax, so most students rarely ever have need for official IDs before they graduate from school. You, however, are a special case."

"What does 'two m' mean?" she asked with curiosity. Most of the rest of the information on the card was fairly self-explanatory.

"In the Free Nations, Class II means you are provisionally an adult," he glanced at her sidelong. "Normally, you would not qualify for Class II until you had completed basic schooling. At Iris Academy, that would be certified completion of your first two years of study. In your case, you have been granted status as a provisional adult for a different reason."

"Oh," Amoretta said, putting one hand under her chin as she realized it all at once. "Because I got married."

"That would be it," he agreed.

She carefully put the ID away in her little shoulder bag and he ushered her up the simple stone walk to the house that stood all alone among the trees.

On the doorstep, he consulted his watch.

"Very good," he said. "We're on time, so we won't have to wait."

"Wait for what?" she asked.

"The correct destination," he said. "This one shifts between New York, Philadelphia, and Boston."

He didn't give her time to ask a second question, although another one was certainly forming in her head as a result of his somewhat puzzling answer. He took her hand, and then seemed to reconsider, putting his arm around her waist instead. She flushed a little, although there was no one to observe them.

"Better go through together, the first time," he said simply, by way of explanation.

"Through where?" she wanted to know.

"The door, of course," he answered dryly. "Keep your eyes closed as we go through. It will be disorienting, but we'll be through in a moment."

He briefly knocked on the door, a sequence of ten knocks of varied rhythm. There was a knocking sound from inside the house in answer, and he seemed satisfied.

"It's always a wise precaution to verify that the door you intend to use is in service at the time you wish to use it," he explained, then he glanced down at her. "Ready?" he asked, one hand on the doorknob.

"I  _guess_ ," Amoretta said with uncertainty.

"Remember," he said. "Eyes closed."

And then he opened the door and pulled her through it.

Amoretta meant to close her eyes, she honestly did, but everything happened so quickly that she simply didn't  _think_ to. As he had moved through the door, Grabiner had pulled her close to him so they could both pass through the frame easily. Colors and shapes seemed to turn and kaleidoscope in front of Amoretta's eyes, and she felt very dizzy.

The next thing she knew, Grabiner had her by the shoulders and was giving her a firm shake.

"I do hope you know that when I advise you of something, I do it primarily out of a concern for your comfort, not because I am hiding wonderful, forbidden candylands," he remarked testily.

"I didn't do it on purpose," Amoretta protested, as she wobbled on her feet.

She took a deep breath to try and steady herself, and that was when she realized that the air smelled different.

The air smelled decidedly different.

What had smelled moments before like the New England countryside, now smelled dense and  _urban_.

A little distant, she could hear the sound of traffic and people in the street, the muffled voice of a great city.

"Where are we?" Amoretta demanded, her disorientation pushed aside by building excitement.

"Manhattan," Grabiner answered shortly, still looking her over for signs of ill effects. Apparently satisfied that she was not much the worse for wear despite her experience, he turned and waved briefly at the streetscape behind him. "More specifically, we're in the Court of Corridors."

Looking around herself for the first time, Amoretta realized that they were on a narrow street fronted by old buildings that climbed like canyon walls toward the sky. The street was paved with cinnamon colored bricks, and there were raised curbs on either side of it. It was on one of these curbs that they stood, before a door painted in shiny green enamel. At regular intervals along the walls on either side of the street were dozens and dozens of doors, doors of all different colors and designs, more doors than it seemed that the walls could hold. Although the bulk of the doors were at ground level, there were narrow iron balconies and stairs leading to doors on the second and third stories of the buildings.

Somehow, the sight of all the doors made Amoretta tremble, and she put her hand on Grabiner's arm.

"I had a dream like this," she murmured to him, quite forgetting she had related this nightmare to him when it had happened. "A dream of endless doors, opening up all at once."

Grabiner put his hand on her back. "It's all right," he reassured her. "I know it's a little unsettling if you're not used to it, but every major witch settlement has at least a small hall of Throughways."

"Throughways?" Amoretta asked. She vaguely remembered the word from one of Ellen's after school lectures.

"Permanent portals," Grabiner explained. "Doors that lead from one place to another. You pay the mana toll as you come through, and that powers the gate. It's quite convenient, and the safest way to handle long distance teleportation. It's the backbone of witch society in the Free Nations, as important as your interstate highway system is to the mundanes."

As he spoke, a door immediately to their right opened and Amoretta turned to watch two little girls come bounding through the opening, followed by their more sedate mother, who upon noticing them in the midst of their conversation, smiled and nodded her head. Grabiner politely tipped his hat to them.

After this, Amoretta was more able to relax, because other doors opened at intervals, and other witches and wizards appeared and disappeared through them. Her nightmare then seemed silly and distant. Grabiner's analogy to the highway system had been a good one. It was hard to be afraid of something so common and familiar.

Seeing that she seemed to have recovered herself after the trip, Grabiner offered her his arm.

"Ready now?" he asked.

Amoretta nodded as she took his arm, and they moved down the sidewalk briskly, at Grabiner's pace. As Amoretta trotted to keep up, she reflected that although she might not have anything to do other than sightsee, Grabiner actually had errands of his own.

At the end of the narrow street there was a great iron arch with a gate set into it. Grabiner hesitated a moment as he put his hand on it, but then seemed to steel himself as he pushed it open and led her through it, out into the center of a wide open space.

He turned to the wide-eyed girl with a wry smile and waved his arm in a brief ninety degree arc.

"Welcome," he said, "To the Court of Figs."

Amoretta had felt the change in the air immediately. On one side of the iron gate she had still smelled the smells of modern Manhattan. Once through the gate, she might have been in another time and place entirely.

Rather than being bricked, the long plaza was tiled with beautifully painted squares and hexagons that depicted birds, flowers, fish, trees, chemical and astronomical symbols, letters, words, ideograms, pictographs, numbers, and dozens of other things besides. It was like the ground underfoot was a massive book, one that could be read any which way one liked, simply by following one tile to the next. At regular intervals along the wide avenue were gnarled trees that seemed to be in full fruit, which accounted for the sweet, tangy smell. Amoretta imagined, based on the name of the street, that they were all fig trees. Each of these trees stood in its own neat bed, protected by short brick fences with decorative iron railings.

Looking above her, Amoretta realized that the whole street was covered with a curved glass roof from end to end, like a huge hothouse, or a glass palace. Here and there instead of plain glass in the wide panes there would be a pictorial mosaic of colored glass that cast jeweled light on the ground below. There were witches and wizards and dragons and fairies and unicorns and all sorts of other interesting things depicted in these stained glass windows, and Amoretta might have tripped over her own feet staring up at them if Grabiner hadn't tapped her on the head lightly, reminding her to watch where she was going, particularly in such an unfamiliar place.

Amoretta and Grabiner, with their backs to the gate that led to the Court of Corridors, stood at one of the busiest crossroads in the Court of Figs, and witches and wizards bustled about with all the passion of urban life. Before them was an impressive looking fountain with a great statue in the middle of it. The glass roof was open above this fountain, and Amoretta started as a pigeon flew in through the roof and was suddenly revealed as a young witch on a broom as she dispelled her glamour with a quick flip of her wrist. She alighted on the ground without so much as a glance at the two of them, who were loitering by the fountain, and promptly fastened her broom to a nearby lamppost.

"Taken it all in yet?" Grabiner asked with mild amusement. Amoretta was flushed with her excitement. She was busy looking at  _everything_ , like a small, lively bird.

"This is all in  _Manhattan_?" Amoretta demanded with a laugh as she turned to look first up the street and then down the street. At one end of the broad avenue there seemed to be a park. At the other end was a very impressive white marble building, a perfect example of Beaux-Arts architecture. Besides the Court of Corridors, several smaller streets and alleys crossed the Court of Figs at intervals.

"On the east side of Chelsea," Grabiner agreed, "Although there are only limited routes of access to the Court of Figs from the rest of city, even if one does come by air. As far as the mundane people of the city are concerned, this place doesn't exist at all, as I'm sure you have already surmised."

"It's pretty spectacular to hide something  _this big_  right in the middle of the largest city of the United States," Amoretta said with awe. "Iris Academy is one thing, hidden out in the mountains, but this - "

"Is the largest settlement of witches in North America, yes," Grabiner said with a nod. "It is the cultural and financial center of the Free Nations."

"How is it all accomplished?" Amoretta wanted to know. She sat down on the edge of the fountain and studied the statue at the center of it. The figure was both familiar and unfamiliar to her. It was a beautiful woman in a flowing toga, astride a broomstick. She carried a round shield and wore a pointed crown. One hand was extended above her head, holding a wand, which glowed with spellflame. In large letters around the base of the fountain was ascribed her name: Lady Liberty.

"With a great deal of cooperation," Grabiner said seriously. "Spells have been worked into the fabric of this place for generations. You can't set foot in the court unless you're witchborn, or have sworn an oath of family fealty to a witch or wizard." Grabiner gave her a wry smile. "Honestly, if you're so impressed by the Court of Figs, I ought to take you to London at some point, to the Ravenswalk."

Amoretta leaned forward with interest. "If you're offering to take me on vacation, then I'm certainly not going to  _complain_ ," she assured him.

Grabiner put his hand under his chin thoughtfully, and at last said, "I'll  _consider_ it."

Then he held out his hands to help her up.

"Come along then," he said. "There's more to see, and we have plenty to do."

Amoretta nodded, and he helped her to her feet.

* * *

As might have been expected, the Court of Figs was a commercial district. On either side of the broad, tiled avenue, there were buildings of between four to seven stories, the lowest floors of which were all occupied by businesses. Many of them were shop fronts, although she also counted a couple of office buildings, three different theatres, a hospital, a public library, and a civil service building.

She had to shake a leg to keep up with Grabiner, and it was very easy to get distracted, as there were an incredible number of new and exciting things to look at. The streets were filled with cosmopolitan people: witches and wizards of all shapes, sizes, ages, and colors; very small people who might have been pixies or dwarves, very large people who might have been trolls or giants, winged people, hoofed people, people with tails, people with fins, people who were nearly naked, people who were almost entirely covered up, people who floated, people who oozed, people who slithered -

"It's so interesting," she said to him in a low voice. "Everyone is so different. I didn't know the witch world was so diverse."

Grabiner gave her a brief smile. "It isn't all old white men in bathrobes with long beards, no," he answered teasingly. He tapped her on the shoulder lightly, a signal for her to stop, and pointed down a side street.

"That leads to the Bone Gate. It's one of the Court of Figs' most singular landmarks, being a permanent portal that opens directly to Reverie, the capital city of Horizon, in the Otherworld," he said. "It takes an immense amount of mana to keep it open constantly, but it is extremely convenient if one has business in Horizon, or an Othermage has business in the Court of Figs. Of course, the passage of minors through the gate is forbidden," he added with a warning tone, and Amoretta's cheeks flushed as she ducked her head. "The presence of the Bone Gate is the reason that the Court of Figs is so diverse. There are witches and wizards from all over both worlds here, along with many other non-human denizens as well. They all have business to do, people to see, things to buy. The court has its own police force to keep order." He briefly gestured toward a young woman of about twenty who stood at the corner of the Court of Figs and the Street of Bone. She was wearing distinctive golden robes and a little round hat. "That's one of them there. They're called the Vigilance, and she is a Vigilant Officer. It is good to know what they look like, should you ever find yourself lost in the Court. They are generally to be trusted as they have absolutely nothing at all to do with the Council of Magistrates. The Court of Figs is independently governed, like the rest of the Free Nations."

Amoretta nodded and apparently through with his brief lecture, Grabiner began to walk again, and she hurried to follow him. Although the temptation to stare at all the interesting persons around her was very great, Amoretta tried not to. She didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable with her attentions.

One thing she did notice was that many of the younger witches and wizards about on the streets wore very similar black robes with robin's egg blue trim.

She tugged on Grabiner's arm.

"Are those students?" she asked.

Grabiner glanced around himself absently and then gave her a nod. "Yes," he said. "From the Courthouse School, that gargantuan building you see at the end of the street. Their term doesn't finish until the end of May, I believe." He consulted his watch. "They must be on their lunch break."

"Some of the children look awfully young," Amoretta observed. By that she meant that she didn't think they could possibly be sixteen years old. Some of the children in their neat little uniforms looked so young she didn't think they had even awoken to their magic yet.

"Courthouse School has an underschool for young children," Grabiner answered with a slight shrug. "Children begin at six, I believe."

"What about wildseeds?" Amoretta asked, both her eyebrows raised.

Grabiner grunted as he rolled his eyes. "Of course not wildseeds, you ninny," he said with a shake of his head. "Wildseeds can't be detected until they awaken to their magic. At least until secondary school they remain the problem of the mundane education system." He eyed the beautiful but imposing school at the end of the avenue. "Besides, I don't believe Courthouse School has wildseed students very often. The tuition is very expensive, and they don't have a scholarship fund for wildseeds who choose emancipation, the way Iris Academy does."

"Students like Ellen," she said, and Grabiner nodded. Amoretta was perplexed, "Does that mean if a wildseed student were to go to that school, and then ended up having to separate from their parents and couldn't pay their tuition, that they'd just be  _expelled_? Magic sealed? All that?"

"I believe on the rare occasion that this happens, that Courthouse School does attempt to place the student at another school, if there's room." he said. "But they rarely accept wildseed students for just this reason."

Amoretta frowned. "I guess I never stopped to think about the fact that wildseeds really face an uphill battle when they become witches." She shook her head. "Everyone at Iris Academy is so nice about everything. Virginia says it doesn't really make a difference, but it does, doesn't it?" she asked him seriously.

Grabiner nodded once. "It does," he said. "There isn't really any entrenched disenfranchisement or discrimination, certainly not in the Free Nations, but many things are more difficult for wildseed witches than they necessarily need be. It's a whole new culture to explore, with its own taboos, its own laws, its own moral codes, and nothing exists to introduce a wildseed witch to any of this but her own experiences. Witches who are witchborn and witch-reared face a much easier time with things, while wildseed witches often struggle to integrate into society. That is why so many witches who wash out during their schooling period are wildseeds - the vast majority, actually. It's not that they can't work spells, it's that they can't understand the culture, which is quite strict and traditional, even here," he said with a half wave of his hand to indicate the Court of Figs. "If you cannot follow the rules, you will not be allowed to remain a witch."

"Only no one really bothers to explain the rules, do they?" Amoretta asked pensively, reflecting on a conversation she had had with Ellen some months before.

"There is no special effort made," Grabiner admitted. "That is what makes it so difficult for wildseeds. Wildseeds are like stray cats. You might leave some food on the back step for them, but you don't concern yourself with them overly, even though you have several cats living inside your house. Yet you don't do anything that might hurt them, that might chase them away. You allow them to sleep under your house, and you give them scraps that you'd otherwise throw away, and hope that someday they may turn out to be useful. That is the essence of being a wildseed, compared to being raised in a family of witches. No one sets out to disadvantage you - they even help a bit, so long as it doesn't inconvenience them terribly - and yet you're disadvantaged."

Amoretta let out a laugh that was wistful and a bit melancholy. "The thing that I have such a hard time understanding is that you know all these things. You've thought about them. You've considered them very carefully, and then decided on your actions. You  _know_ that wildseeds are disadvantaged, and yet - "

Grabiner cut her off, supplying the rest of her sentence himself. "The first thing I did when I met you was cruelly inform you of the truth of the nature of the world. Being a wildseed almost destines you for failure," he said, glancing at the ground as he walked, at their feet, side by side on the multicolored tile. "More than half of wildseed students wash out before they finish their basic schooling."

Amoretta frowned. "Doesn't that make you think there's something wrong with the system?" she wanted to know.

Grabiner shrugged. "It doesn't matter if there is. What we have is what we have. One cannot undertake to redesign society simply because it is unfair to a minority. If it were overhauled, which is possible only in a fanciful sitting room debate, it would simply end up disadvantaging some other group."

Amoretta sighed heavily. "And here I thought you were a revolutionary, Che."

Grabiner shook his head. "I am aware of the state of the world, but my experience with it informs me that attempts to change society are futile. Society changes in a slow tide informed by general public opinion. Individuals have very little effect on it."

"So you're content to remain idle, because it's not really your problem?" Amoretta demanded, her cheeks flushed.

"That is correct," Grabiner answered evenly.

"Because that causes you the least inconvenience?" Amoretta demanded heatedly. "Because what does it matter to you how many lives are ruined by a simple lack of intervention, by a lack of honest care? Wildseeds don't wash out because they aren't good enough. They wash out because they think they're not wanted. No one bothers to help them at all," she stormed. "They think that no one cares whether they succeed or not - "

"The truth is that no one does," Grabiner's response was flat.

By now, Amoretta was furious.

"Even when it's right in front of you, year after year, you ignore it, because it's an inconvenient truth," she shouted, stamping her foot sharply against the tile. By now she had stopped walking altogether, and had let go of his arm to stand before him. "Worrying about it would keep you from your books, and certainly  _doing_ something about it would eat up far too much of your busy social calendar - "

Grabiner moved suddenly, swiftly closing the space between them so that Amoretta took a half step backward and stumbled against the fence of one of the fig enclosures, sitting down unexpectedly. He leaned down so his mouth was very close to her ear, and when he spoke his voice was very tense.

"I am a coward, Amoretta," he said bitterly. "I have never made a secret of this to you. It is unsurprising for you to wish that I were a better man, but understand this well: _I am not._  The problems of the world are not to be solved by schoolgirls. Do you think you're the first person to have thought of all these things? I assure you,  _you are not_. I do not desire to be continually brutalized by this world's cruelty, so no, I do not step out of line. I did that long ago, and I found that I was weak, rather than strong. This is the man that you have chosen: a weak, snivelling,  _coward_ ," he finished with some ferocity. But then his voice was very calm and controlled again as he pulled away from her. "Now, Mrs. Grabiner, if you're quite finished, I believe we have drawn a crowd."

It was true. Their altercation had drawn several interested onlookers, no few of which were in the black and blue robes of the Courthouse School. Amoretta flushed deeply. She was ashamed because she'd drawn a crowd, but she was more ashamed at having spoken so cruelly to Grabiner, who had clearly felt the sting of her accusations very personally. Who was she to judge him? Had he not gone out of his way to make things easier for her? Was he not always spending his own time explaining things to both she and Ellen? He had been educating wildseed students for years, and always took special care to warn them about particularly dangerous behavior. He was not a friendly man with an easy smile and a gentle nature. He did what he could in the way that he could. He had been hurt very badly in the past, and as a result, he kept his head down. He was just as abused by the system as she was, only he had felt its abuse for longer.

Even if she disagreed with the position he had ultimately decided to adopt, surely shouting cruel, angry words at him was not the way for either of them to come to understand the other's heart. She had sworn to share her courage with him. It was her courage that he needed now.

He was looking down at her very dispassionately, his face cold, quiet, and withdrawn.

She had done that.

Well, what she had done, she could undo. This was the magic of emotional connection.

With very little regard for who was watching, and completely overcome by her own feelings, Amoretta launched herself at him, like a sprinter off the starting block. She impacted like a small cannonball, causing him to stagger back a step unexpectedly.

"I love you," she said very honestly as she wrapped her arms around him tightly. "I really do. More than anything. I'm sorry that I'm so stupid."

At a complete loss of how he ought to feel, how he ought to react, at last Grabiner put his arms around her and gave her a brief squeeze. "You're not stupid," he said quietly. "You're just  _very young_."

She sniffled as she held onto him. "That's no excuse for being an idiot," she said, and then let out a sigh. "The world is really horribly complicated, isn't it?" she said. "People are horribly complicated."

"It is," Grabiner agreed, his voice low, "And they are."

"I still haven't given up on making things better," Amoretta warned as he gently set her back on her feet.

"Of course you haven't," Grabiner said. It wasn't so much resignation as it was acceptance.

His eyes had lost their hardness. Now he only looked a little weary.

"I really do love you," she insisted. "Not _in spite_  of who you are, but  _because_ of it."

"I know," he said, and he laid one of his hands very briefly on the top of her head.

Then he said, "Come along. We still have things to do."

And they went again, arm in arm.

* * *

After their moving, emotional scene that had unfolded right in the middle of the street, it was perhaps unsurprising that Amoretta and Grabiner found themselves persons of interest to the regular denizens of the Court of Figs. Eyes followed them wherever they went, apparently in hopes of another dramatic altercation, so Amoretta was relieved when Grabiner indicated that they had at last reached their destination.

They stood in front of a cast iron building in Palazzo style, with large windows and decorative cornices. The bottom floor was given over to a shop, whose name was painted on the window in ornate script. It read: Belle, Book, and Candle.

Amoretta brightened at that. "Bell, book, and candle," she said with excitement, "Isn't that - "

"The right of excommunication?" Grabiner asked dryly. "By Bell, By Book, and By Candle. Indeed it is. New York witches love to be ironic."

Amoretta laughed. "Well, what I was really going to say was, 'Isn't that the movie with James Stewart and Kim Novak?' It's about witches, you know. It's a love story. It's set in Manhattan. Greenwich Village, I think."

"Oh," was all Grabiner said, and then shrugged, opening the door to the shop for her.

A little bell chimed as she stepped over the threshold, and Amoretta found herself in perhaps the witchiest shop she'd ever seen. It felt considerably more authentic than Marvy, which for its all its arcane wonder was still a relatively ordinary shop in a relatively ordinary shopping mall, sandwiched between a calendar store and a novelty junk shop. It had plain tile floors, fluorescent lights, and a formica sales counter.

If Marvy was a picture postcard available at thirty cents or four for a dollar, then this shop was a Van Eyck original. The floor was old hardwood in narrow, grooved planks that were carefully fit together. It was a little uneven, and squeaked when she walked. Amoretta had the sneaking suspicion that if she dropped a marble on the floor it would roll around in confusion, rather than to the left or to the right.

Part of the shop space was occupied by wood and glass counters which displayed various magical artifacts available for purchase, and there were also large wicker baskets at intervals that showcased staffs and batons of various sizes and shapes. The back part of the shop had a number of open shelves which seemed to contain books and boxes and urns and other sundries. Behind the counter were vials and vials of liquid in every color of the rainbow, and Amoretta detected an unmistakable smell:  _ink_. Other than ink, the whole place smelled  _herbal_ , like someone brewed wildflower tea all day long, every day of the year.

The person behind the counter was a lady of perhaps fifty years. Her dark hair was covered by a scarf, and she wore large, beautiful earrings of polished wood. She smiled in recognition of Grabiner and nodded gracefully at Amoretta.

"Well, well, Mr. Grabiner," she said as she placed both of her long fingered hands on the counter in front of her, "It has been some time since I saw you. To what do I owe this pleasure?" Her eyes moved curiously to Amoretta. "Is this the mysterious wife all the Court of Figs has been gossiping about?"

Grabiner shrugged, as if in resignation, then gestured to the woman behind the counter.

"Amoretta, this is Marguerite Belle, the owner of Belle, Book, and Candle, and master grimoire binder. Madame Belle, this is my wife: Marianne Amoretta Grabiner."

"Second year student!" Amoretta chimed in, and then offered her hand pleasantly.

Madame Belle took it with a laugh. "Well," she said, "The girl certainly has character."

"Too much, really," Grabiner agreed with a grunt.

"Are all the people in the Court of Figs really gossiping about our marriage?" Amoretta asked with interest.

Madame Belle gave a noncommittal wave of her hand. "It has been news of interest, yes. Most people with ties to Britain or the Continent have been most curious to see you."

Amoretta smiled and looked sidelong at Grabiner. "I had no idea that Hieronymous was so well known, even here," she said.

"Everyone knows the Blind Icarus," Madame Belle answered simply. "That is the power of infamy. People are surprised, my dear. No one ever expected your husband to take another wife."

It was impossible to misread the surprise and momentary confusion that passed across Amoretta's face, and Madame Belle clearly felt aggrieved for having caused it.

"Forgive me," she said with a slight bow of her head. "I have been too familiar." She turned her eyes to Grabiner, whose face was expressionless, as it often was when his checkered past was discussed in public. "Now, I am sure that you did not come here for gossip. What is it that you need?"

Grabiner glanced sidelong at Amoretta, who had put on an uneasy smile, and was trying to look as if nothing were bothering her. He sighed. Eventually, they would have to have a long talk, but not today.

Not tomorrow.

He wasn't ready.

So he pressed on instead.

"I believe she is ready for a grimoire," he said with a brief brush of his fingertips on Amoretta's nearest shoulder.

Amoretta glanced shyly at him as he did it, and seemed to draw strength from this momentary contact.

Meanwhile, Madame Belle had laid a finger against her lips thoughtfully. She studied Amoretta.

"You have just finished your first year, correct?" she asked, and Amoretta nodded. Madame Belle turned her attention back to Grabiner. "I am not one to discourage business, but are you certain your wife has need of such a thing? She is very young, and she studies Pentachromatic style, does she not? Very few Pentachromatic witches use grimoires at any point in their lives, much to my distress," her eyes moved back to Amoretta sympathetically. "It is how I make my living, after all."

Grabiner nodded, because he was certain. Seeing Amoretta's strange material circle had convinced him of the necessity of organizing her independent research. "She is not a common student," he said.

Madame Belle smiled, "Found another prodigy have you?" she asked. "I am sure you would not have married a  _common_ student."

Amoretta shifted a little uncomfortably in place, but Grabiner ignored the bookbinder's insinuation.

"Very well," Madame Belle said with another nod of her head. "You would be the best judge." Then she moved from behind the counter and gestured to Amoretta. "Come along, young lady, and we will see what there is to be seen."

Grabiner retired to a bench in the front of the store, where he sat reading a book that he had carried with him in one of his pockets. Amoretta followed the elder witch to the back of the shop, where she bustled around in various bins and boxes.

"More than simply a record of spells, a grimoire is a record of a witch's  _self_ ," Madame Belle was explaining as she rummaged. At last she brought out a heavy book which turned out to be full of samples of cloth and leather. "A grimoire is a companion until the witch's end of days. That is why a grimoire must be tailored to the witch. Any witch may use any wand or staff, with a greater or lesser degree of success, but only the master of a grimoire may make use of it. The grimoire accepts the mastery of only one individual. Otherwise, it does not allow itself to be read."

Amoretta was made to choose all sorts of things, to select all the materials for binding: cloth, leather, paper, skin, inks, ribbon, wood - all while Madame Belle carefully explained the attributes of each. Some things it was best to choose instinctually, she advised, while others required serious deliberation. Once or twice Amoretta made to ask Grabiner for his opinion and Madame Belle stopped her.

"This is your grimoire and he knows that. That is why he is waiting patiently in the front of the store and allowing you to make your own choices," she explained.

After what seemed an eternity, all the choices were made. Then Madame Belle had to have a sample of her handwriting and a sample of her blood. Amoretta was put in a chair and her blood was drawn just as if she were at a clinic. Then it was neatly labeled and put away and Amoretta was made to copy out the Gettysburg address in longhand using her "most natural script."

At last it was all done, and Amoretta, feeling a little exhausted, went to fetch Grabiner from where he sat, reading. She leaned on the counter in relief and examined the items in the case with some curiosity while he paid the bill.

"It will take perhaps six weeks to bind your grimoire," she named a date in the middle of June. "You may come and pick it up here on that day, or I can ship it to the address of your choice."

Amoretta assumed that Grabiner would request the book to be shipped, but instead he indicated that they would pick it up in person. After brief farewells, they exited the shop.

"You hate commotion and trouble," she teased as they came out into the sun. "I'm surprised you  _willingly_ elected to come all the way back to the Court of Figs just to pick up my grimoire," she said with a smile.

"I thought," he said somewhat haltingly, "That it might give you pleasure to bring Miss Middleton with you on the return trip."

Amoretta impetuously grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "That's a wonderful thought," she agreed. "I'm sure she'll love it!"

Grabiner watched Amoretta for signs of her earlier unease, but the girl showed nothing put her familiar mild and pleasant temperament. If she was still upset about the unexpected revelation in the shop or their argument in the street, she was hiding it well.

As if to punctuate his thought, her stomach growled loudly, and she flushed with embarrassment.

"I'm afraid I have to admit that I  _am_ starving," she said. "I haven't eaten since breakfast."

"Well, I did intend to take you to lunch," he said. "I'll even let you pick the restaurant."

"And they say chivalry is dead," Amoretta said with a laugh, leaning forward winsomely.

They ate Mediterranean food on a patio, and Amoretta had the pleasure of people-watching as she ate falafel. She and Grabiner talked of the city, of their drive through the country, of grimoires - they talked about all sorts of safe, pleasant subjects, as if politely ignoring a third party who had come to sit silently at their table.

After lunch, Grabiner hustled her off to a tailor. This tailor turned out to be eight feet tall, with grayish blue skin and small nubby horns on his head.

"Spriggan," Grabiner murmured to her quietly, and then went to sit in a comfortable chair at the front of the shop with his book.

"Wildseed," she volunteered to the tailor with embarrassment, but he did not seem to be overly worried about the admission.

Grabiner waited patiently while Amoretta was measured for new clothing by the capable tailor with the large, nimble hands. The spriggan tailor, who told her to call him Loy, seemed set on making sure she got only what truly suited her. Amoretta was glad for his help, because of course she had no idea what was fashionable or even  _appropriate_ for witches, outside of what Petunia Potsdam wore, and Amoretta was too cautious to use that eccentric lady for a style yardstick.

Amoretta had fairly good taste, knew what colors she liked, and the sorts of things she usually wore, but she relied on the Loy's insight into history and custom when making her selections.

It was preposterous to imagine that she would wear her uniform over the summer, Grabiner had declared at lunch, and neither could she keep borrowing clothes from Petunia Potsdam, no matter how accommodating that lady might be. Amoretta was a witch now, fully behind the velvet curtain, and it was time she had a witch's wardrobe.

Amoretta affably allowed herself to be measured all over, and made choices when she was prompted. Like the grimoire, her new robes would not be available immediately. Magic, after all, was not really  _magic_ , but required time and effort and energy. When completed, her new clothing could either be sent by mail, or picked up at the shop. Grabiner allowed that these could be sent, and gave the mailing address of the school.

So far as she knew, Revane Cottage didn't have a mailing address, or if it did, it might as well have been 'over the rainbow.'

After her business at the tailor's was completed and Amoretta said goodbye to Loy, Grabiner took her around to see a few of the other notable sights of the Court of Figs, and she smiled and clapped and was amazed, as was appropriate.

But neither of them spoke of the dead girl - not the one whose stone they had so recently visited, but the other one, the one who lay long dead, in the vague and unrevealed past.

It was the thing they did not speak of.


	2. One: But For You I Will

Grabiner and Amoretta toured the Court of Figs for nearly four hours, but eventually Amoretta grew tired, and as Grabiner's watchful eye was upon her, she did not even have time to mention it before he suggested that the day's activities in the city were at an end. They had already finished their business and concluded the day's sightseeing, at any rate. And so they went back through the enameled green door and found themselves again on the old fashioned porch that smelled of the Vermont countryside.

The drive home was more relaxed than their morning trip had been, and Amoretta, already tired from the walking she had done, spent most of it sidled up to Grabiner on the bench seat, relaxed almost bonelessly against him. The afternoon sun was warm and golden, and threw leopard spots of light and shadow on the old grey asphalt. It wasn't very long before Amoretta began to be lulled asleep, despite the roar of the old jeep's engine. She tried very hard to stay awake, but the sweet air of summertime was intoxicating, and she had already had a long day with an early start.

"Go ahead and nap if you want," Grabiner said, glancing down at her. "Nothing will be able to catch you in a moving vehicle. You can safely have a rest."

It was all the encouragement Amoretta needed after the day's adventures, and soon she was quite asleep against Grabiner's shoulder. She had just closed her eyes when she opened them again slowly, blinking against the light of the afternoon sun.

The jeep's engine was rattling through prolonged deathroes as it settled down, clicking along like an old wrist watch. Grabiner had already turned the key and pocketed it. As she sat up sleepily, she was disoriented and confused, because they were not in the Iris Academy parking circle.

Instead, they were in a small clearing in the middle of the woods. Hardwoods and evergreen trees were thick around them, and there was the scent of resin in the air. Looking behind her, Amoretta could see a narrow dusty road curving out of sight behind a stand of spruce trees. Grabiner was already out of the jeep, walking slow circles around it as he cast a number of spells. Amoretta politely waited until he had finished laying all his spells, then unfastened her seat belt and slid out of the car and onto the pine needle covered ground.

Other than the jeep, there was absolutely nothing in the clearing save the two of them, and one other very peculiar object.

It was a door, standing quite alone, apart from any wall or fence. There was a narrow stone step in front of it, and a wooden mailbox on a post to one side of it, but otherwise, it was entirely free-standing.

The door was painted bright blue. It reminded Amoretta of the seaside.

"Where are we?" Amoretta wanted to know, turning around in place so she could take in the quiet forest.

"About a quarter of a mile from Mystery Lake," Grabiner answered easily as he sat his hat back on his head. He pointed toward a narrow trail that led off through the trees, downhill. "That path will take you straight to it. We're about two miles away from Iris Academy as the crow flies, but five by road. This happens to be our new address."

A smile bloomed on Amoretta's face as soon as he began speaking, and she had guessed the truth before he had even finished confirming it. She danced forward on her toes and was soon turning circles around the clearing, looking at everything, while Grabiner stood by with his hands in his pockets, idly watching her.

The door standing all on its own she gave particular scrutiny, examining the mailbox (it was empty), the doorstep (it was smooth stone), and the door itself from both sides (it was blue with white trim).

At last, having looked at absolutely everything, she returned to Grabiner's side.

"It's a throughway, isn't it?" she asked, lacing her fingers together. "That's what you meant by it being close enough to visit every day."

"Yes," Grabiner agreed with a brief nod of his head. "That is what I meant." There was a small smile at the corner of his mouth. He was enjoying himself. "Now, that you've thoroughly examined this empty clearing," he said with a chuckle, "Would you like to actually see the house?"

"Yes, Mr. Grabiner," Amoretta said with a decisive nod, "I most certainly would."

They walked over to the solitary door together, but before leading her through it, Grabiner stopped and looked at her very seriously.

"I have a few things to explain, before we go through," he said.

"Should I take notes?" Amoretta baited, leaning forward in amusement.

Grabiner snorted, but shook his head. "It's not necessary, but do  _pay attention_ , please," he said.

"Revane Cottage exists on what is known as a demi-plane. It is a small space entirely closed off from this world and the Other except for two entrances, one of which I have taken the time to permanently seal. In the schema of the planes, the cottage and its demi-plane exist in the near Other, but this demi-plane is a secure environment because of the fact that it is entirely closed off and separate from both the near Other and the far Other." He paused and then looked at her very steadily. "This is our home, and the wards around it are constructed in such a way that no one may enter here without  _express invitation,_ either yours or mine. This will perhaps be a bit inconvenient for you, but please realize that this is the only way for me to maintain your personal security, as we are still unsure what Mr. Ramsey's next move may be. I am trusting you with this responsibility, Amoretta. I might have reserved the right of invitation for myself, but I have no desire to keep you locked in a tower to which you do not have the key." He laid a hand on her shoulder, and it seemed strangely heavy, as if it were weighted down by his fears. "You must never,  _never_ invite someone into this place unless you are certain about their identity and intentions." He paused and looked away, slightly embarrassed. His cheeks were colored faintly. "I am sorry to be draconian, but I have no wish for you to end up the girl who ate the poisoned apple."

Overcome by his quiet sentiment, Amoretta threw her arms around his waist and squeezed him hard.

"I promise not to let in any old peddlers," she said with a laugh.

He put his own arms around her briefly, then tilted her chin up so that she was looking at him directly. "I'm telling you all these things because invitation and hospitality are very important to witch folk. Among witches, everything is done with intention. When you invite someone into your house, they become your guest, and you are responsible for their actions while they remain under your roof. Please remember that. You're now the mistress of a witch-home, a position for which you've had no proper preparation. I am sorry things can't be made easier for you, but it can't be helped. There will be a great number of things you will have to learn as you go along. I don't imagine we'll be doing much entertaining, apart from your school friends, but you will soon find out that there are rules for everything, and you're going to have to learn them and abide by them."

It was quite a lot to take in all at once, and Amoretta's head fairly spun with it all. Still, she had the presence of mind to nod seriously so he would know that she understood his meaning. Although everything was thrilling, it made her a little nervous to think there were so many new things to learn, aside from the heaps of other things she had already anticipated learning. Petunia Potsdam had told her that Iris Academy was like a garden where children could remain children, without growing up. Now, both she and Grabiner had left the garden, and while they hadn't gone so very far away, being outside of its protective circle meant that the two of them were now out in the wide world. They would both have to be grown-ups, or at least a reasonable facsimile of such. At Revane Cottage, Amoretta could not be Amoretta Suzerain, second year student, feckless and free to do as she liked regardless of consequences. She would have to be Amoretta Grabiner, mistress of the household, along with whatever that might entail. The prospect of playing house was exciting, certainly, but she realized that it also came with responsibilities.

In a way, the two of them were very much like children who had decided to set up a playhouse for the summer, or like students engaged in a science project. They were very like children, filled with the novel excitement of making decisions for themselves, and the thrill of trying out all sorts of new things together. They had eager hands for a future that neither could as yet picture, but both yearned after, a powerful, nameless heart's desire. Beyond that, they both already had pockets full of heavy cares, and a strong sense of what they owed to one another. Although they were like children, they were not really children. Grabiner was a man early old, and for all of Amoretta's wild enthusiasm, she had a calm, patient heart. She was a girl who will always be young, and yet has never been young. They were both children with the souls of adults, and adults with the hearts of children.

Grabiner had held his hand out toward her. He was asking her to stand beside him. Given the unexpectedness of their marriage - and her admitted youth and inexperience - he probably would have been within his rights to treat her like a ward, rather than like his wife, as he had tried to do in the beginning. But he had done with all that. He had no use for it any more. It had all become untenably ridiculous the moment he had owned to himself how he really felt. There had never been any real question as to how she felt. However absurd and unlikely it might have seemed to outsiders, what they had was a  _real_ marriage, a real partnership, an honest relationship. None of it had turned out the way he had intended in the beginning, or perhaps that was just another fanciful lie, and it had all turned out exactly as he had intended. It was difficult to know, at this point. What he could say was fairly straightforward: she was his wife, not his student, not his ward, and it would be dishonest and disrespectful to treat her as anything else.

Amoretta understood that he had extended his hand to her, that he wished for her to stand beside him, and not behind him. There could be no more pretending, no more hiding behind the accident of their marriage. Grabiner had said it: everything witches did, they did with intention.

_You are my wife,_  he said to her, even without saying it.  _Not by accident, but because I choose for it to be so._

_You are my husband,_  she replied, as sprightly as a song sparrow.  _Not because I was forced to accept you, but because I would never accept anyone else but you._

They might have been wedded by convention, tradition, the rules of the cosmos, but their marriage was something that they built together, with their own hands.

"All right," he said with a serious nod. "I'll take you in, now."

And then, quite without warning, he picked her up.

"Hieronymous!" Amoretta cried with a laugh, "What  _are_ you doing?"

He colored again faintly and looked away. "We may have been married since January, but as our marriage has not yet been consummated, you're still in a liminal state. I've got to carry you across the threshold, otherwise you may unwittingly allow in something  _unwelcome_."

"You never did any such thing at school," she protested with rosy cheeks, although she was quite enjoying being held right in front of the threshold to her new home. Technically speaking, Grabiner had carried her around the campus any number of times during the spring term, but he had never expressly crossed a threshold with her, and Amoretta had already retired that fond wish as one that was destined not to come true (rather like marrying a prince, or discovering that she was the heir to an ancient legacy).

"That's because we were at school," he explained patiently, if a bit testily, because he did not like being put on the spot while he was already clearly embarrassed. "This is our home, and the first threshold you'll truly cross since becoming my wife."

"Well then, take me across, and then I'll kiss you," Amoretta suggested, because she felt sure that this was a fine bargain for the both of them. Being as they had been in public all day, she hadn't kissed him since the morning, and she felt for certain that they were overdue. They had missed so many kisses early on that she was bound and determined to catch them up.

Grabiner apparently found the suggestion acceptable, because without any further discussion he shifted her slightly in his arms and then took her through the bright blue door before them.

She remembered to close her eyes this time, so she missed the twinkling vertigo of the throughway passage.

As he settled her down on her feet on the other side of the door, Amoretta quite forgot that she had promised to kiss him because her eyes and her heart were filled with the sight of her new home.

_I am sure it will satisfy all your Brothers Grimm fantasies,_  Grabiner had told her some weeks before.

It certainly  _did_.

It was almost difficult to say what captured Amoretta's attention first, there was so much to take in, but certainly one thing that was overwhelmingly striking was the  _color_. All the colors in the little stone courtyard were more vibrant than any Amoretta had ever seen with her own two eyes, as if this new world was shot entirely on technicolor film. The colors were so bright that they almost left a  _taste_ in her mouth, a phantom sensation over her tongue that made her grasp after something that she couldn't quite recall. It was as if a few frames of grainy, yellowed 16 millimeter film had flashed through her mind, and then been lost in the shuffle of her thoughts as she tried to lay her hands on them. The confusion passed so quickly that Amoretta soon forgot it, sure that it was disorientation from her most recent portal trip.

Awe at her surroundings crowded everything apart from wonder out of her mind.

The color of the greenery around her was so vivid that she wanted to put her fingers on it, to feel the leaves that looked so waxy and polished, silky as a lady's slipper, or as soft as furry velvet.

Although certainly the forest clearing they had left behind had been warm and verdant with the green and gold of summer, compared to the scene before her it was as if her entire life up until the moment she passed through the blue door had been lived in grey monotone.

The sky was a sharp and brilliant azure, and the billowy white cumulus clouds drifting through it had an almost unreal aspect, as if the heavens had been painted there and then set into motion by Turner. The stone underfoot was grey and brown, dappled and variegated with flecks of gold and green and occasional glimmers of mica that caught the light. Delicate bits of green grass threaded up here and there between the stones of the courtyard, looking like the downy hair of dryads. There were two large flower beds before the house, teeming with the wide open eyes and mouths of irises and daffodils, tulips and anemones, asters and pansies and tiger lilies. It was both strange and delightful to seem them all in bloom at once, as if the early spring flowers were on holiday visiting the late summer flowers at the seaside.

The  _seaside_.

All at once, Amoretta realized she could hear the rhythmic heartbeat of the sea - the sound of the waves breaking against rocks. She could smell the salt in the air, and as she looked past the stone house before her into the distance, all she could see was the deep, mysterious blue of the ocean.

Minutes before she had been in the middle of a Vermont forest, more than a hundred miles from the coast, and now the shore was perhaps a few hundred feet away, down a cliff, from the looks of it.

"Hieronymous," Amoretta cried with a mixture of delight and confusion, turning around to insistently tug on his arm, " _Where are we?_ "

"Brittany," he answered easily, then shrugged slightly. "Well, that's what it's meant to invoke, at least. As I told you, we're on a demi-plane. I know you may feel that you can see out to sea for miles, but this whole plane is only about six hundred meters in diameter. Here, distance is an illusion. We're on the inside of a protective sphere of spells and permanent enchantments. But it is  _meant_ to be Brittany. That's where this cottage was, originally."

This statement caused Amoretta to at last turn her attentions to the house itself. Grabiner had called it a cottage, but to Amoretta it looked like a proper country house. It was certainly bigger than the farmhouse she had shared with her grandmother, aunt, and uncle. The house was grey stone, with at least two storeys and an attic. She counted three chimneys crowning the shingled roof. Five rectangular windows with cheerfully painted wooden shutters looked out onto the stone courtyard in front. The old wooden door was framed in decorative stonework. Woodbine had climbed up the side wall and around the front, under the lowest windows, and this too was in full bloom. The garden was full of the scents of the sea and of dozens of flowers. She could hear birds singing in the trees around the front garden.

It felt like summertime in fairy land.

"Hieronymous," Amoretta laughed, nearly overcome with surprise and pleasure. "This  _isn't_ a cottage. This is a  _house_. When you say 'cottage' it means a two room saltbox, or at most a four square, not well, it looks like I could have all of Horse Hall over for the weekend and still have room to spare," she said with a wide wave of her arm.

"That is a terrifying thought and a gross exaggeration," Grabiner remarked dryly, then continued on, fond and pleased, but patronizing. "And yes, Little Nell, this  _is_ a cottage. A house has - at the very least - half a dozen bedrooms. This has only four. Therefore, it is a cottage."

"Those are pretty stringent requirements," Amoretta noted wonderingly as she looked over the pretty stone house. The front door and shutters were painted a cheerful, bright blue. which matched the blue of the door that stood all on its own in the little clearing in the woods. The roof was also shingled in blue. "Going by that, I don't actually know all that many homeowners. I just know a lot of cottagers."

"I told you, witches take hospitality very seriously," Grabiner said. "Therefore, even the most humble witch-house is built to accommodate a number of guests." He let his hand come to rest in the small of her back, turning so they were both looking at the house together. "Well," he asked. "What do you think, Mrs. Grabiner? Will it suit?"

And that was when Amoretta remembered to kiss him.

* * *

Grabiner indulged Amoretta in her tour around the grounds, and she was delighted to find that there was a shaded stone terrace around the back of the house, and a winding path down to the sea.

"Is it a real sea?" she wanted to know. "Can we go swimming in it?"

"You can go swimming in it," he informed her, "And as I recall, it is pleasant, if one enjoys swimming. As for it being the 'real sea,' it isn't. It's merely a simulacrum, but it's a  _very good_  simulacrum."

"Are there fish in it?" Amoretta wanted to know excitedly, standing at the edge of the terrace and leaning over the railing so that she could look into the sea below.

Grabiner shook his head. "Not living fish. There may be a few chimerical fish, but there may not be, as I didn't take the time to investigate the sea. I told you that this was a closed demi-plane. That means the only living souls that are here, are here by our express permission. Those flowers in the garden aren't living flowers, they're chimerical. Birds you may see are chimerical. All the insects are chimerical."

Amoretta's brow wrinkled, because she'd only done a little reading on chimerical creatures. "Does that mean they're all illusions?" she asked. "Like the sea at the horizon?" she pointed out over the swells to the horizon line where the sea met the sky, which was most certainly an illusion in this small, closed world.

Grabiner shook his head again. "They're not illusions, although you could say they're kin to illusions, in a way. They're ephemera, dreams given form. It takes some time and effort to raise them here in the Near Other, particularly in this place, because it has a strong personal identity, that of Brittany. In the Far Other, in unstable realms, it is easy to give a dream form. In fact, it can be  _too easy_. Nightmares and fears inadvertently given form are the source of some of the most horrifying monsters in the Other." He waved his hand briefly as if this point were moot, "But you shouldn't have much cause to worry over that here. Because the protections on this place are very strong, no one, not even  _you_ , with your bag full of unexpected tricks, should be able to dreamcraft something  _unintentionally_. If you'd like to learn dreamcrafting under controlled conditions a little later in the summer, then that can probably be arranged. It might be a pleasant break from your more serious studies."

"All the flowers in the garden, you did that," she realized wonderingly. "The irises and the daffodils and the asters, you dreamed them up, didn't you? That's what you've been doing all this time."

"Among other things," Grabiner said with a slight shrug. "You asked for a garden, so I prepared a garden. I knew you liked birds, so I crafted some little birds for your garden. A garden wants bees and butterflies, and so I made some bees and butterflies An illusion is only pleasing when it is full and complete." He looked away, out at the sea. "It occurred to me that I had never really given you anything, and so I thought to give you something you might like."

"I love it," she said honestly, with a warm smile of pure pleasure. "It's probably the second best thing you've ever given me."

"And what's the best thing?" he wanted to know, turning his eyes back toward her with a wry smile of his own.

"That's a state secret, Mr. Grabiner," she teased, and he chuckled lowly, for which she felt very gratified. The thought of Grabiner carefully constructing her make-believe garden was such that it made her heart laugh with the kind of laughter that is only born in love and familiarity. "That's why everything is blooming all at once," Amoretta said. "Because it's all make believe."

"It is," Grabiner nodded. "In places like this it is very difficult to create a small, self-sustaining ecosystem - it's certainly beyond my expertise. That is why most people with residences in demi-planes depend on chimerical residents to create the illusion of life. You might think of this place something like a space station. Water and oxygen have to be imported here from somewhere else. All nutrients come from the outside and are brought here by us, for us. You might raise roses here in this garden if you liked, real roses and not chimerical ones, but if you wished to do that the plants would have to be fed and watered like hydroponic plants, since they'd draw basically no nutrition from the soil. On the other hand, chimerical plants do not need food nor water, although they do appreciate pleasant thoughts. In this way, they are very hardy, and perfect for life in a place like this. But they do have a hidden achilles heel, one that is particularly susceptible to witches and wizards. They are ephemera, and therefore their connection to reality is tenuous and delicate. Even the lightest dismissal can destroy them. Be very careful about when and where you cast your dispels, or you may soon find yourself without a garden. Dreams are very fragile."

"A dispel will kill them," Amoretta said, leaning forward on her arms pensively. That was something she was going to have to be very careful about. She didn't want to destroy the garden Grabiner had worked so carefully to prepare for her with a misplaced spell.

"It won't really kill them," Grabiner disagreed, "Because they aren't alive. But it will end their existence. They will cease to be."

"It seems very fragile," she said thoughtfully. "Life as a dream."

"It isn't really," he disagreed. "No more so than our own lives. It's just that the rules are slightly different." He turned back toward the house. "Come along then," he said. "And I'll show you the inside."

* * *

Although there was a small back door that opened onto the seaward terrace, Grabiner led her on a stone path around the house, near some old outbuildings that might have once been used to keep chickens or a cow in days long past. On the front step he paused to regard her carefully for a moment, then, as if satisfied by what he saw, he turned the polished brass knob on the front door and led her into the house.

The walls were white plaster and the floor was smooth grey flagstone covered with beautifully braided rag rugs. As Grabiner had promised, there were massive exposed wooden beams on the ceiling, bespeaking a time when there was still virgin timber to be had in the construction of a private home. The front door opened onto a great room, with large stone fireplaces on either side of it. There were chairs and a small sofa pleasantly arranged before one of the fireplaces, and a couple of benches around what was presumably a games table. An upright piano of dark walnut colored wood stood against the wall, with a thin black case leaning against it. On the other side of the great room was a long, sturdy wooden dining table with ten chairs arranged around it.

Delicious smells were wafting out from what Amoretta could only assume was the kitchen, which was partially concealed from the front of the house by a half-height wall with a gate set into it.

Perhaps most surprising of all was the fact that she and Grabiner were not alone in their new home. Amoretta was still getting her bearings when a small figure in a long skirt and apron appeared from inside the kitchen. She was not quite four feet tall, and she had wide, pointed ears and curly, russet colored hair that was pulled back from her face and held in a knot at the back of her head. She looked very neat and tidy, and she exuded an inexplicable  _aura of authority_.

"Welcome home, sir," she said with a quick bob. "You've missed tea, but I had an idea you might be peckish, so I've held it for you."

"Thank you, Tansy," Grabiner answered briefly. "That was very thoughtful of you."

"I've gotten the house positively spotless for the arrival of the mistress," the diminutive house matron bragged, looking quite satisfied with herself, as she folded her arms behind her back. "Will you be bringing her here today, sir?"

Grabiner glanced sidelong at Amoretta, who had tilted her head toward him curiously, then he cleared his throat, apparently preparing himself for what he considered would be an  _ordeal_.

"Tansy," he corrected deliberately, "This  _is_ the mistress."

Amoretta readied her best smile, and made to offer her hand to Tansy to shake, but before she could begin any of these pleasantries the small woman before her was positively fuming.

"No," she declared with authority, throwing her arm out in a slicing motion. "No, no,  **no**. Absolutely not.  _Never_."

Amoretta was caught flat-footed by this unexpected reaction, and withdrew her hand, looking up to Grabiner in confusion. He didn't look so much angry as he did frustrated and resigned.

Tansy was still talking, "And your grandmother would turn over in her grave - "

"I hope she's doing backflips," Grabiner cut in dryly, interrupting Tansy's tirade. "Regardless of your feelings on the matter, Tansy, this  _is_ the mistress, and I expect her to be treated with the respect due her position."

The small woman planted her hands solidly on her hips. "Respect is due those who are due to be respected," she said resolutely. "I knew you had gone and married some schoolgirl, a savage American wildseed with no consideration for traditions, but I had held out some hope that you hadn't  _completely_ lost your mind - "

"Tansy - " Grabiner attempted to break in, but Tansy was having none of it.

"But now you bring in this little monster, with her braided hair and her bruised knees, like she's barely out of primary school. If you expect me to turn the running of this house over to her - "

"That is  _exactly_ what I expect," Grabiner thundered, "Otherwise you may pack your things this evening."

"Are you threatening to dismiss me?" Tansy demanded, her face turning scarlet. "Me, of a family of kobolds that's been with your family for generations, all over this little minx - "

Grabiner made a sound in his throat that Amoretta immediately recognized as _'Not this again._ ' Tansy had commenced to weep loudly into her apron, so Amoretta put her hand briefly on Grabiner's shoulder and stepped between them.

"Tansy, Tansy," Amoretta comforted, "It's all right. You won't be dismissed - "

Tansy looked up at her sharply, with eyes that glittered like gypsum, both with tears and with fury.

"You little upstart, as if you had the right to make such a decision," she fell to sobbing into her apron again, and Amoretta sighed.

She saw Grabiner move to speak again out of the corner of her eye, but she raised a hand thoughtfully behind her.

"Tansy, I know this is very unexpected for you, but I would like for us to be friends - " she tried again.

"Never did I think I'd live to see the day it would come to this," Tansy sobbed noisily into her apron. "A baron's wife telling me she wanted to be  _friends_." She raised her head long enough to fix Grabiner with a piercing stare. "You're the master, and you make the law, but no matter what you say, you can't turn a common girl into a lady just by  _declaring_ that it's so - "

"I don't expect you to understand this, Tansy," Grabiner said brusquely, "But that girl is  _anything_ but common."

The way he said it made it sound much more like an indictment than a compliment, and Amoretta silently rolled her eyes at him as she continued to try and ineffectually pat the sobbing Tansy on the shoulder.

"She doesn't know  _anything_ ," Tansy accused Grabiner, "She doesn't know  _anything at all_ , and you know that, and yet still, you bring her here, expecting - " She broke down into sobs again, "We're going to be the laughing stock of  _everywhere_."

"Would you like for me to leave?" Amoretta asked the sobbing housekeeper seriously, bending down slightly so that she would be at eye level.

" _Amoretta_ ," Grabiner began angrily.

"I'll handle this, Hieronymous," she cut him off crisply, and this startled Grabiner enough to give him pause.

"Of course I want you to leave, you uppity little urchin," Tansy snorted, wiping her eyes with her apron.

Amoretta crossed her arms over her chest and looked at Tansy levelly. "Well, I'm not going to." she said simply. "Let me be very clear on this, Tansy. It's not within your power to visit the sort of misery on me that would cause me to leave him. That's because that sort of misery doesn't exist in this world, or any other. Snub me if you like. Shun me. Be as rude and uncivil as you think is necessary. You are perfectly free to do whatever you want, although being unpleasant is a big waste of energy, I think. It won't change anything in the long run, but if making us both miserable gives you a certain thrill, then I won't stop you."

Amoretta straightened and considered Tansy thoughtfully. The small housekeeper had stopped sobbing during Amoretta's challenge, but saying that they had 'made up' would have been overstating the facts. Out of the corner of her eye, Amoretta could see that Grabiner wanted to say something.

At last, he said only, "That will be all, Tansy. We'll take our tea on the back terrace."

And Amoretta followed him out through a narrow hall to the shady stone terrace that looked over the sea.

* * *

As he settled down in one of the wooden chairs, Grabiner let out a tired sigh. "I'm sorry," he said as he massaged his temples. "I should have better prepared you for that."

Amoretta settled down limply in a chair next to him. "I'm still not really all that sure what she was angry at me about. Is it because I'm a wildseed? American? A student?" She looked down at herself and flushed in embarrassment. "I guess it's true that no one would ever confuse me for an adult."

Grabiner frowned. "You are who you are," he answered her simply. "I shouldn't have loved you otherwise." Then he shrugged, leaning back in his chair as he folded his hands over his lap. "The truth is that Tansy would have been displeased no matter who you were or what you looked like. I doubt nothing short of Victoria herself risen from her grave would have satisfied her."

Amoretta frowned slightly herself. "Earlier you told me, well, I guess I thought," she took a deep breath, then tried again, "I guess when you told me that people would generally be accepting of our marriage in the witch world, I expected that they actually  _would be_  accepting. Not sort of," she fluttered her hand in the air briefly as she struggled to accurately complete her thought, "Frothing at the mouth."

"They are accepting," he said, then shrugged half-heartedly, "Generally. The trip to the Court of Figs ought to have reassured you of that." He glanced at her sidelong and his tone was very dry. "Although you must be prepared to weather a fair amount of  _incredulity_." Then he looked away and laughed, and it was brittle. "Tansy, however, is something of a special case. She has a great deal more respect for the traditions of the Grabiner family than anyone else in the world, at this point. Were I not - unfortunately - the son of the sixteenth Viscount Montague, she would likely not be particularly concerned with who I chose to marry. She has very particular ideas about who the son and heir should choose to permanently associate himself with."

Amoretta bit her lip, considering. "Something I was wondering about," she said. "Is she a brownie? Tansy, I mean."

Grabiner's mouth turned up at the corner briefly. "Better not suggest such a thing to her, or you'll get another earful." He shook his head briefly. "No, she's a kobold, and that singular fact is one of the joys of her existence. She's very good at what she does, but she's always been very headstrong. She is unafraid of offering her unsolicited opinions to the witches and wizards of the household. Other kobolds might consider this a fault of character, but for Tansy, it's a badge of pride. It makes her a  _challenge_ to deal with. I'm sure that's why my father packed her off here to live with us. He draws a great deal of pleasure from making my life as difficult as possible, given his limited involvement in it."

"I was going to ask about that," Amoretta said, shifting about in her chair a little. "You never mentioned that we'd have - " she paused and seemed to be trying to find the least offensive word.

"Staff."

"Servants," Grabiner corrected briefly, and Amoretta looked uncomfortable, which he chose to pointedly ignore. "That's because I didn't expect to. Considering what I make a year, servants are a bit excessive, don't you think?" he smiled wryly, then shook his head. "Tansy was already here when I came to open the house for the first time, and once a kobold has set up her domain, there's really no getting rid of her without  _considerable suffering_. She is attached to the family line, and I am fortunately not personally responsible for seeing that she is remunerated for her services. My one consolation is that she despises my father so much that there isn't the slightest chance that she might have been sent here to spy for him. The fact that neither of us like him is the basis for our working relationship." Grabiner shrugged. "Although we did have some brief disagreements in the beginning, she really has been indispensable in getting the house in order for permanent habitation. She does excellent work," he said again. "She simply suffers from an excess of personal opinions. I can't ask you to forgive her," he said with a shrug, "Only to tolerate her."

Amoretta shook her head. "Oh, she didn't really hurt my feelings," she reassured him. "After all, most of what she said was pretty obviously true, right? I  _am_ a savage upstart American wildseed who doesn't know anything about anything."

"It has no bearing at all whether it's true or not," Grabiner disagreed immediately, flicking his hand at her dismissively. "She should not have said it because it was disrespectful. You are the mistress of this house, as well as a witch. A kobold has no right to speak ill of you. If I allow her to disrespect you, then the household will become a battlefield and things will soon dissolve into absolute chaos. I must be firm, even brutal if necessary. It doesn't matter at all if Tansy likes you - I don't think she likes me at all, for instance - but she absolutely  _must_ respect you."

As Grabiner spoke deliberately, with Amoretta squirming in her seat as she thought about how to respond, another new face appeared, a boy who came to the terrace carrying a tea tray. He had dark hair and skin and bright amber colored eyes, and they fixed on Amoretta's own very briefly before he dropped them respectfully. He carefully put the tea tray down on the table and after arranging the cups, began pouring the tea.

Grabiner interrupted him with a brief wave of his hand.

"This is Cord," he said to Amoretta, and Cord nodded his head briefly. Like the kobold housekeeper, he had wide pointed ears, although he was taller than she was, standing at something over four feet. He wore a black cutaway jacket and a bowtie. He looked about her age, or perhaps a little older.

"It's nice to meet you, Cord," Amoretta said cheerfully, although she could not help but feel a little anxiety over his reaction after the scene in the great room.

Cord touched his hair briefly. "It's a pleasure to meet you too, ma'am," he said. Unlike Tansy, who sounded distinctly English, Cord was definitely American. Amoretta was ruminating on this when she realized that he had turned faintly ashen as he hastened to correct himself. "My lady,"

Grabiner waved him off idly. "You can dispense with that, Cord." Grabiner glanced sidelong at Amoretta. "I had to threaten to send Tansy packing for a week before she finally stopped calling me 'my lord,' every time I turned around. This is my own home, and I'd rather not be constantly reminded of all the things I failed to do with my life every moment of the day."

"Yes, sir," agreed Cord, who had by now finished pouring the tea. "As you like, sir."

Amoretta smiled at him warmly, because Cord at least had no apparent objections to her.

"Thank you very much," she said, and he nodded again as he departed.

After he had gone and Grabiner had sampled his tea and found it acceptable, he said, "Cord is a brownie. In some ways, kobolds and brownies are very nearly  _exactly_ the same thing, but it is the differences between them that matter most to Tansy's sort, as it is the differences that matter most to the great majority of people. I'm sure you heard Tansy noisily crying about how long her family has been in service to gens Grabiner. Believe me," he grumbled, "It will not be the last time you hear about it." He shifted his attention to the plate of sandwiches as he continued his lecture. "Well, that is the only difference between brownies and kobolds. Kobolds are in service to family lines, while brownies are what you might call free agents. They're both hearth-dwellers - house spirits, I mean. Kobolds tend to be very dedicated to the honorable reputations of their families, which is the real reason Tansy is so displeased by you. It's really no wonder. Kobolds like order and tradition, and my father - well, I believe I have mentioned to you before that he is  _less_ than a gentleman. Given my own reputation, I'm sure Tansy wasn't holding out much hope that I'd turn out more respectable, but now I've gone and dashed all of that quite to hell by up and marrying you."

Amoretta laid back in the chair and laughed mirthlessly. "Well, that makes me feel very positively about our marriage."

Grabiner waved her off again as he ate a tea sandwich. "I'll speak to her. She cannot imagine she'll be allowed to continue to treat you disrespectfully - "

Amoretta sat up, waving her hands rapidly, an attempt to ward him off. "Oh, Hieronymous, please don't do that. If you do that, she'll only resent me  _more_." Amoretta sighed. "She's right, you know. Respect has to be  _earned_ , and I suppose I haven't done much to earn her respect, yet."

Grabiner gave her a withering look. "Have you not been listening to a single word that I have said? You really are an absolute idiot," he said declaratively as he shook his head in clear aggravation. "You honestly believe you can  _earn_ her respect? She doesn't want you to earn her respect. She doesn't believe respect  _can_ be earned. It's not that you haven't proven yourself to her, you silly little idiot. She doesn't believe you deserve any respect because of the circumstances of your birth. For her, the right to be respected isn't something that is earned. It is divine right, a birthright, a right distributed blindly by fate with no relation at all to either merit or respectability. Either you're born to rule, or to be ruled. She has a hard-coded binary view of the world, with gens Grabiner at the top of everything. I know you labor under the charming delusion that everyone is egalitarian in their secret heart, but what you must come to understand is that they are  _not_. Tansy has no desire to be your friend. That is not the way her world functions. What she wants is for you to know your place."

Amoretta grumpily drew her legs into the chair with her, and wrapped her arms around them. "Well, my whole identity isn't bound up in the fact that I went and married you," she complained. Amoretta was not keen on being Mrs. Grabiner if it meant she lost sight of the person who was Amoretta Suzerain.

Grabiner shook his head as he rolled his eyes toward the sky. "Of course it's not. Don't be absurd."

"If you chastise her, then all my authority here derives from the fact that I'm your wife, and I don't like that. Besides, you can't force her to like me or respect me. All you can really do is make her dislike me  _more_ by trying to tell her what to do," she said, shaking her head. "I'm sure it'll be strange and difficult, and maybe it'll end up being absolutely impossible, but I'm determined to find my own way. You said that Tansy wants me to know my place, but what does Tansy know about what my place is? I don't even know. You want me to learn a lot of rules of how to behave, and I promise I'll learn them, but I won't go against what my heart says. I'm going to keep doing things my own way, and I'd appreciate it if you let me. I'll ask for help when I need it, I promise."

"You are an incredibly difficult person," Grabiner said as he put down his sandwich and stared pensively out at the imaginary horizon. "You make everything much harder than it has to be."

"I know," Amoretta said with a full body shrug as she stretched her legs out and at last sampled a tea sandwich. "But that's the only way I know how to be."

* * *

After their tea and sandwiches, they continued their tour of the house without much incident. Besides what she had already seen of the ground floor, there was also a large workshop out a side door, which Grabiner had informed her was earmarked for himself.

"I am, by now,  _almost_ willing to allow that you are not an ordinary student, but no first year student requires a private workshop, no matter how extraordinary she may be," he said definitively as he closed the door on it after exhibiting it to her.

"But I'm a second year student now," she reminded him helpfully, at which point he frowned and reserved comment.

Another small room on the ground floor turned out to be a laundry that connected with the kitchen, and they lingered there only briefly because Grabiner was unwilling to tax his patience with a second confrontation involving Tansy in such a short period.

A staircase in the back hall took them from the ground floor to the first floor, where Grabiner exhibited their bedroom, which was at the head of the stairs. It was a good size, with a wooden floor of beautifully polished boards and a pleasant view of the front garden. Folding doors closed off what Amoretta at first thought was a walk-in closet, but Grabiner corrected that it was in fact a dressing room. There was a tiled stove in the corner attached to the chimney, but as it was late spring, there was no fire. The furniture in the bedroom was large and dark and ponderous, with a great deal of carved wood and cabinetry. In fact, when she first came into the room, Amoretta was at a loss as to where she might find the bed, since none was immediately obvious to her.

"Is it hidden in the wall?" she wondered aloud, because anything was possible in a witch-house, she thought. It might even be concealed on the ceiling. She paused to look up, but there was no bed on the ceiling either.

Grabiner chuckled at that, low in his throat, and then crossed the room to the largest of the great cabinets, which looked like it might have comfortably concealed a tiger. Then he opened a panel on the gargantuan piece of furniture and revealed that the bed was  _inside_ the cabinet.

Amoretta immediately approached to investigate it.

"I  _never_ ," she declared, clapping her hands in excitement. "I mean, of course I've read about curtained beds, and I've seen trundle beds, but this is something else  _entirely_."

"It's a  _lit-clos_ ," he said. "They used to be terribly common in the Breton countryside a couple of centuries ago. They provided some much needed privacy in farm homes, and kept piglets from crawling into bed with the master of the house. Now they're simply quaint."

Amoretta had already crawled into the cabinet bed on her hands and knees and sat bouncing up and down slightly on the full mattress. It squeaked appreciatively every time she landed.

"It is quaint, isn't it?" she laughed. "Like in a period film. Oh, Hieronymous, this is amazing. Being in here, it's like having a secret cave, or when you make a fort out of the couch cushions and an old afghan. It's fantastic. I feel like I could find Narnia in here if I just kept going back."

"I thought you'd like it," he observed idly, leaning against the side of the bed cabinet. "It came with the room. It isn't as comfortable as an ordinary, modern bed," he warned, but Amoretta cut him off.

"Who wants an ordinary bed?" Amoretta laughed. "I'd rather have an unordinary bed and an unordinary life. I don't care if they're a little uncomfortable. I'll get used to it."

Amoretta took a deep breath, and then exhaled.

"It smells very nice in here. Clean like the seaside, and then the linens smell of lavender, I think." She thoughtfully tapped her thumb against her bottom lip. "But it's a little lonely, isn't it? I can't smell the books any more. I've gotten very used to the smell of print and binding."

"Well then," he said, offering her a hand out of the bed, "Let's go across the hall, then. The books are in the library."

The library was right across the hall, in a bright room with a beautiful view of the sea. All four of the walls were lined with books from floor to ceiling. It felt very nostalgic.

Grabiner's desk and chair were in the middle of the room, and there were already some books piled on it, marked in the haphazard way that was as signature as his fingerprints.

As she turned around in the center of the room, admiring the books which had become as familiar to her as the man himself, she couldn't help but observe, "I'm amazed you managed to fit them all in here."

"I didn't," he admitted. "I had to break up the collection. Many of the reference books are now downstairs in the workshop."

As she perused the fiction, her cheeks flushed slightly as she realized that her own books had been carefully shuffled into his larger collection. At Iris Academy there had been absolutely no room for them on the shelves, so her books had remained in piles around her trunk. It made her feel warm and accepted to know that he had taken the time and the care to integrate her books into the library, and she told him so.

Grabiner flushed slightly and went to the window, as if the view of the sea were particularly entrancing.

"It seemed the most rational and sensible thing to do," he said shortly, folding his hands behind his back. "After all," he said. "It is not as if you are a passing phenomenon."

"No," she agreed as she came up behind him and laid her cheek against his back, "I am here to stay, but I still think it was nice of you to be so thoughtful. Everything is really  _just right_."

She had put her arms loosely around his middle as she had spoken, and he looked over his shoulder at her briefly before putting one of his own hands over hers.

"This is now your home as well as mine," he said quietly. "The least I can do is make it comfortable and familiar to you. I never meant for you to be forced to live at my whims, although that is the way things turned out this spring. This will be our  _life_ , not only today and tomorrow, but ten years from now, twenty years from now, perhaps even a hundred years from now, if I can shake the curse of my ancestors. I know that you really don't understand that now, and it might be a very long time until you do, but I want you to understand that I am committed to the promise I made to you."

"I've never doubted that for a moment, Hieronymous," Amoretta said with warmth, tightening her arms around him briefly. "If there's anything that I can count on as constant in the world, I know it's you."

For a moment his body relaxed, and he leaned back against her, taking comfort in her presence. But then he straightened, and she knew he had reaffirmed his personal convictions.

"Come along then," he said, pulling out of her embrace. "There's still more to see."

There was still more to see. The first floor had two other bedrooms, as well as the house's single divided bathroom and washroom. One of the bedrooms overlooked the garden and had a dressing room of its own.

"Given how it's situated," Grabiner had said, "It's probably the wizard's bedroom. The bedrooms for the master and the mistress of the house face on the front garden, while the guest rooms look out onto the sea."

Amoretta bit her lip as she looked around the pleasant room, which had heavy furniture similar to what she had seen in their own bedroom, including what was presumably another cabinet bed.

"I'm glad we're sleeping in one room," she said, then shook her head briefly. "I know we have to, but even if we didn't, I'd  _want_ to."

"I know," Grabiner said briefly as he turned to leave the vacant wizard's bedroom. "So would I."

Amoretta giggled quietly in the empty bedroom, and then followed Grabiner down the hall.

* * *

Although there was another staircase at the end of the hall, leading presumably to the second floor, Grabiner didn't take Amoretta up because it was primarily for "children, apprentices, servants, and other undesirables." There was always the chance of running into Tansy up there, and when Amoretta wondered how the house matron might have beaten them to the second floor, Grabiner only wisely suggested that she never question how a kobold or brownie made her way around the house.

"Some things are better left unknown," Grabiner said seriously.

And so they found themselves out on the grounds again, walking together companionably. They paused so Amoretta could examine shallow tiled pool set into the ground. Water from the pool ran away along a stone course cut into the ground and crossed by a wooden footbridge. Near the cliff, the stream became a waterfall as it burst over the edge and fell down into the sea. As it fell, the water turned a waterwheel attached to a millhouse that was so small it could only have comfortably accommodated a family of rabbits.

Grabiner told her the millhouse had been used to grind grain or mill corn, or anything else the witch's family might need, back when the house had been a functioning cottage home, as opposed to a spot for seaside holidays.

It was all very picturesque.

"You know," Amoretta said thoughtfully, pausing to take off her shoes, heel to toe, so that she could put her feet in the water of the pool. "There's something I've been wondering about all this time. When Ellen went to stay with the Dansons, she said that Virginia's parents both had private workshops and bedrooms, and then you confirmed that when you gave me that ridiculous lecture about the appropriate behaviors and attitudes of a husband and wife."

Grabiner made a rumbling noise as he predicted the trajectory of this line of inquiry, but he waited for her to pose her question as she dabbled her feet in the water.

"Why are witches and wizards so focused on keeping themselves separate from one another?" she asked, looking up at him. "I mean, you know what I think about all of that - "

"I certainly do," Grabiner interjected, and she shrugged as if to say 'It's the way I am.' He paused and seemed to be turning things over in his mind. "You haven't had any history of magic or anthropology classes yet," he said, and she nodded.

"No, but Ellen and I talked over a lot of what she read," Amoretta reminded him, and he shook his head.

"She was primarily concerned with learning modern laws and customs," he said. "I suppose I'll have to try and give you a very basic overview of witch culture for the last several thousand years," He shook his head briefly, as if wondering over what a sometimes thankless job being Amoretta's husband turned out to be. Certainly giving anthropological lectures fell outside the bounds of what passed as normal discourse between a husband and wife.

He thought for a moment, and then at last began.

"What you have to understand," he said, "Is that witches and wizards are as old as humanity. We didn't spring into existence suddenly in the twelfth century, as someone discovered the secret of how to turn lead into gold. There have always been witches and wizards, and we have always relied on magic to solve our problems. For a very long time, being able to command the forces of this world and the Other with spells afforded us a position of privilege." He watched her wriggling her toes in the water briefly before continuing. "Although you haven't had any formal classes, you may well know from your own readings that one of the most basic ways society organizes itself and becomes more complex is through the division of labor. This is not simply division by means of the sexes. It isn't that women sat around weaving baskets and gathering tubers while men went out to hunt the terrifying bull mammoth. That's a criminally stupid oversimplification. In a very small society, everyone does everything, because that's the only way to survive."

He shrugged before continuing. "The primary way human beings divide up labor is by means of specialized craft. In a very small group of people, shall we say, a hundred and fifty, because that's an approximation of Dunbar's number, there is very little room for dedicated specialization, but that's where specialization begins. There are people who gather and prepare plant-based foods, others who hunt or scavenge for meat, some who look after the group's children, others who make essential tools. Naturally, each person in this small group can do a number of jobs, and they are often expected to, based on the needs of the group at any one time. Individuals always have their own natural strengths and interests, however. Even if a person  _can_  do any number of things, they'll be better at some things than other things, and that is how specialization of labor begins. As small nomadic societies develop into stationary, agriculturally based societies, the maximum possible population of the settlement also increases, based on crop yields. Fewer individuals have to be concerned with gathering food and other elements of basic survival and can focus on improving their crafts or arts, which in turn improve the lives of the individuals of the settlement. Crafts have a tendency to be passed along family lines, as parents teach their children the crafts that they learned as children. This is a very general and oversimplified view of how a caste based society develops. It is a natural outgrowth of urbanization and city-dwelling. The specialization of labor is what allows society to advance. Castes aside, we are social animals that engage in cooperative specialization of labor. That is the sole dynamo for improving human quality of life. The greater the specialization of labour, the higher the standard of living for even the lowest echelon of society."

Amoretta cocked her head to the side. "Yes, I generally get all of that. I mean, I have read Adam Smith," she said, "But what does that have to do with - "

He waved her off. "I'm getting to that. As I said before, there have been witches and wizards as long as there have been human beings. As human societies began to become more complex, witches and wizards had their own crafts already. Just as potters and farmers tended to pass their arts down to their children, so did witches. This early in human history we have no indications of there being anything so complex as a spell paradigm, but early witches must have had something that fulfilled a similar purpose. They had ways of teaching magic to the next generation. But although they strove their utmost to understand and advance their art, each witch was like an island in the sea. They hoarded what knowledge they could, but humanity's early witches were farflung, and so each witch family became a tradition unto themselves, and this is how all the ancient lineages of magic came about." Grabiner tapped his foot absently. "Before human beings invented writing - and it was not witches who did that, mind, but bureaucrats who had a need to keep accounts - the only way a witch could pass on her knowledge was through oral tradition. We have some fragmentary records of the multiple styles of magic practiced in Uruk in Sumeria and Nekhen in Egypt, but nothing much before. Neolithic and perhaps even paleolithic magic did exist, however. That is clear from the fact that when recorded magic does appear in these early urban centers, it is already complex and advanced. It is already an old art."

Amoretta nodded thoughtfully. She had ceased dabbling her feet in the water and sat very still, listening intently.

"This was all a roundabout way of explaining why, even long before the velvet curtain came to be, witches were a caste apart from mundane men and women," Grabiner said. "In many early urban societies, particularly dynastic empires, women did not enjoy equal rights under the law. Their only social standing was defined in relation to the men they were related to: they were daughters or wives - or if they were less fortunate, slaves - nothing else. This is likely because many ancient dynastic cultures evolved from earlier societies in which male hunter-warriors were the dominant caste. The most direct reason for this is probably the human reproductive cycle. In periods of time where the reproductive impetus of humans is only a replacement strategy, to keep populations level, a woman need not spend all that much of her life cycle devoted to the birthing and rearing of children, even if infant mortality is relatively high. This means that a woman can do practically every single job that a man can do, and there is not much societal pressure on her to spend her time reproducing instead. In a small society under environmental stresses, too many children is an appreciably greater burden," he said with a shrug. "Naturally I'm not reducing women into human broodmothers, but it is important to understand that bearing children is the only major element of survival-labor that cannot be divided equally regardless of sex. Women must bear the next generation. Men cannot, even with magic," Grabiner gave her a wry smile.

"As I said, when the reproductive impetus of a group is only maintaining population equilibrium, women and men of an individual group generally enjoy relatively equal rights and status, but when the reproductive impetus shifts from maintenance to expansion, women are often reduced to second class citizens or even property," he said, shaking his head. "When population expansion is the societal pressure, women must spend much more time and energy on pregnancy and breast-feeding. Additionally, they are only able to take on the sorts of labor than can be accomplished while pregnant or breast-feeding. As you might imagine, it is much more difficult to be a hunter or a warrior while pregnant than otherwise, particularly in a society under environmental stress from reduced resources. Because of the way human culture develops, once something becomes accepted tradition, or a taboo, often the practices linger on even after the circumstances that caused these practices to be adopted in the first place collapse. That is why women remained second class citizens, and the view that they were unable to do the same sort of labor as men persisted for so long, even when there was no longer extreme societal pressure for reproduction." He shrugged. "I'm not trying to justify enslavement, disenfranchisement, or servitude for any group of people, simply trying to explain in a general way how it came about in the first place."

"Whatever the far-reaching anthropological reasons behind the oppression of women in any number of world cultures, witches always enjoyed privileged status. As members of their special caste, witches and wizards were regarded as equal under the law. A witch could hold property, head a family, own slaves, rise as an aristocrat, and practice any additional craft or trade as she pleased, just as a wizard could, just as a mundane man could. Under the law in these ancient societies, witches weren't really regarded as women at all. They weren't women, they were witches, just as wizards weren't men. They were wizards."

"I think I'm beginning to see," Amoretta said, leaning forward over her knees. "Because she occupied a special privileged position in society, it was important for a witch to retain her rights and independence, even if she married. Otherwise she became a wife, and a wife isn't a witch, is that it?" she wondered.

"Exactly," Grabiner said. "But more than simply  _retaining_ her rights, it was very important for a witch to display her rights as conspicuously as possible, and in a way they could not be misapprehended. This reaffirms her identity as a witch: a privileged citizen, as opposed to a woman, who was a second class citizen at best. By keeping separate bedrooms, separate workshops, and sometimes even separate households, ultimately, each witch or wizard remains head of their own family, even if they marry. That is how witch marriage customs developed: the sine manu marriage being the standard marriage between two individuals who wished to maintain autonomy. The cum manu marriage originated out of the fact that sometimes it was beneficial to one or both parties for a partner to change familial allegiance. One could give up some independence in favor of protection, or form a stronger familial alliance than that of one's birth. Otherwise," he looked away, and seemed very distant for a moment. "Sometimes people just want to get away from the families they were born into." He shook his head briefly as if clearing it, and then turned his attention back to her. "As you know, in a cum manu marriage, new bonds of family are formed that supersede the old. When two individuals become closer, it is inevitable that some of their independence is sacrificed."

"But that means a witch really did," she paused in confusion, "Really does? give up her identity as a woman in order to be a witch. And what about all the mundane women around her? She just leaves them in servitude because she happens to have a better situation?" Amoretta frowned. She was troubled by all these revelations. It made her feel complicit in something terrible, because she was a witch herself.

Grabiner's mouth turned up at the corner a bit and he shook his head slightly. "I knew that's what you'd take away from it. You have to realize that it's not that simple. Witches and wizards have always made up a tiny fraction of the population of humanity. Currently, I believe it's about .01% of the total world population, although some areas have a higher concentration of witches than others. Europe has a higher density of witches than the Free Nations do, for instance. The only real way witches and wizards can influence prevailing mindsets at those numbers is through magocracy: rule by the forces at our disposal. It has been tried in the past, to greater or lesser success, but ask yourself this: can the foundations of personal liberty be founded in fascist rule? I believe you can answer that question yourself."

"So there was nothing that could have been done?" Amoretta asked in confusion, her brow wrinkling seriously.

"I didn't say that," Grabiner said with a brief shrug. "Quite a lot was done, actually, on a smaller scale. Sometimes on a larger scale, which often angered the populace and caused witches to be ejected from various cultural groups. What you must understand is that witches and wizards are human beings, just the same as mundanes are. We have never been possessed of some sort of grand moral conscience, or greatly sophisticated philosophical world view. It is true that through magic we often have a wider scope to view the world than the average mundane, but this makes us neither saints nor geniuses. Generally the worldview and personal philosophy of a witch or wizard is quite comparable to the worldview of a mundane from a similar cultural background. Witches do not have exclusive rights to Truth with a capital T, no matter what some others may tell you. If anything, modern witches tend to be traditionalists, unwilling, or at least  _reluctant_ , to adopt new ideas. It probably hasn't always been that way, but that's been the case for several hundred years now, for all of modern witch history, in fact."

Amoretta leaned her cheek against her palm thoughtfully as she looked up at him. "I know you've mentioned that before, that tradition is very important to witches, but I guess it didn't really strike home until Loy helped me pick out my clothes. I guess I didn't expect everything to be, well - "

"So old fashioned?" Grabiner supplied and Amoretta nodded.

"That's it," she said. "Very out of step with what's popular today, and a regular mishmash of periods and styles, like a theatrical costuming guide just sort of threw up everywhere. It's not that I don't like it," she admitted, shaking her head. "I do, but it must be more culture shock for wildseed witches. Nobody wears blue jeans and t-shirts. Everybody wears skirts and robes and dresses!" she said, and glanced sidelong at Grabiner. "And I really do mean  _everybody_."

"Very droll," he commented with his familiar dryness, then he shrugged. "The witchborn hold fast to what is familiar to them, particularly to things they identify strongly as being of their own culture. It's not that they favor conservative clothing, necessarily. They like what they have come to accept as their own, and that differs from culture to culture. There are no few witches and wizards in tropical climes who go about in halters and loincloths and not much else."

He was about to continue, when he noticed that Amoretta was giggling indiscreetly into her hands.

He frowned slightly, then said flatly, "I don't want to know what you're imagining."

"That's a shame," Amoretta lamented between giggles. "Because it's really good, this time."

Grabiner gave her a  _look_ , and likely would have said something else, but Amoretta was distracted from her giggling by the sight of a small crimson bird, who landed on the ground on the other side of the little pool of water. The bird chirped and chattered a bit and Amoretta leaned forward with interest.

Then, quite without warning, the rosy bird fluttered across the little pool, landed on the arm Amoretta had laid across her bent knees, and looked up at her inquisitively.

It was a cardinal, a northern cardinal from the forests of Vermont, with its pert little crest that Amoretta thought looked like a coronet and its inky eyemask. He was here, near the little French cottage that overlooked the sea. It seemed both strange and miraculous.

He opened his mouth again to sing, and he chatted a bit, and then trilled, as if asking a question.

Amoretta was flabbergasted, because for all the time she'd spent hunched down in the middle of bushes as a little girl, this was the closest she had ever been to a songbird. She was very still and quiet because she didn't want to disturb him, but the bird seemed entirely unworried by her presence. He simply puffed himself up and chatted and wolf whistled at her until Grabiner shooed him off with a hand.

The bird didn't go very far away, only to the other side of the pool, where he settled again to sing.

Grabiner rolled his eyes. "Awful little showoff," he grunted.

"Oh, Hieronymous," Amoretta lamented, throwing her arms around his leg, which was conveniently nearby, and tugging on it in distress, "Why did you have to scare him away?"

"I'm sure you'll have plenty of opportunities to skip about in your garden in a flower crown, singing to your resident songbirds," he predicted sardonically. "It's not surprising that he likes you, since I created that dreadful little thing as a present for you. Of all the birds in this place, he's really the one with the most personality. He's  _so_ gregarious that he can be deeply aggravating."

Amoretta clapped her hands suddenly, because she had momentarily forgotten that all the creatures in this place were chimerical, due to the overwhelming excitement of having had a bird land on her arm.

"That's right," she said in pleasure. "You made him for me! That was really wonderfully thoughtful of you," she said, leaning against his leg in appreciation. Then another thought struck her more soundly. "But he really is out of place, isn't he?" she laughed. "That's a North American bird, and we're in some place that's meant to be costal France!"

"I think that's the reason he's got such an attitude," Grabiner admitted, eyeing the little bird that was fairly strutting along the ground as if he were a peacock rather than a songbird. "It took me quite a while to get him to coalesce properly. Unlike all the other creatures here, he's not a proper resident of France. I had to be very specific when forming him, to the point where I had to actually use an Audubon field guide. Since I spent so much time on him, comparatively, I believe he ended up with an overly developed personality."

"I think he's  _just right_ ," Amoretta said with a smile, holding out one hand tentatively. Just as she had hoped, the small cardinal alighted comfortably on her hand again. "He really does look remarkably accurate," she said as he began twittering again appreciatively. "Just as good as the real thing," she praised.

"I'm glad you think so," Grabiner said dryly. "I suppose it's good that someone likes him."

The little bird made a sound like a retort at Grabiner, and turned around so his back was to the wizard, and Amoretta laughed.

"He  _does_ have a lot of personality," she said admiringly. "Doesn't he?"

The bird was apparently quite pleased by her praise and fluffed himself up again.

As he perched on her hand, chatting and chortling, Amoretta pressed her teeth against her lower lip.

"Hieronymous," she began worriedly, "You did remember what I said about these birds, didn't you? That they pair - "

Grabiner didn't answer immediately, simply silently pointed to a nearby wooden post where a lady cardinal sat, watching all that transpired like an empress at court. Amoretta was immediately relieved.

"Ah," she said happily, looking down at the cardinal that was perched on her hand. "That's your lady-wife then!"

Grabiner made a sound that was somewhere between a grunt and a chuckle. It was a sound of schadenfreude.

"So he wishes," Grabiner said with a snort.

The cardinal on Amoretta's hand took off suddenly, and fluttered over to the wooden post, where he began to sing the most effusive love song Amoretta could have imagined coming from a cardinal's throat.

The lady cardinal tilted her head at him seriously, as if she were mystified by this display, and then flew off, right in the middle of his song. The cardinal stopped in mid-song, as if honestly startled, and then after a moment of obvious confusion, flew off after her.

"They really are almost like little people," Amoretta wondered aloud, flushing happily.

Grabiner bent down to help her to her feet.

"They are," he agreed, "And they'll become moreso the longer you interact with them. That's how chimerical creatures become persistent."

"Like the Velveteen Rabbit!" Amoretta realized with delight, and Grabiner nodded once.

"Yes," he said, looking down at her bare feet as she bent to collect her socks and shoes. "Like the Velveteen Rabbit."

He was about to suggest that they go back inside and have something warm for supper when a clear musical note sounded sweetly in the air near the two of them, like a hand bell being rung.

"Someone's at the door," he explained to her, and then she watched with interest as he drew a rune circle in the air and counted out the verses to a modified Farspeak spell. "Who's calling?" he asked the glowing rune circle brusquely.

It was a familiar voice that answered.

"You're such a goose," announced Petunia Potsdam categorically. "Who else would it be but me?"

Grabiner rolled his eyes, because he clearly did not delight in being called a goose, particularly not by the meddlesome headmistress.

"Perhaps I ought not let her in," Grabiner said conspiratorially to Amoretta, but the headmistress overheard him whether he had intended her to or not.

"That is your prerogative, Hieronymous," the headmistress agreed cheerfully, "But I would like to remind you that I  _am_  your employer - "

Grabiner made a disgruntled growling sound in response and dismissed the rune circle, but it was clear to Amoretta that a great deal of his growling was for effect only, and he was really quite mild and relaxed.

That was understandable. He was at home.

They were both  _at home_.

That thought was at least as miraculous as the appearance of a cardinal in Brittany.

"Headmistress Petunia Potsdam," he announced to the air, and Amoretta saw a glimmer of spell text trembling along the edge of the sky. "Entry granted."

He turned his attention to Amoretta, and offered her his hand.

"Well," he said. "Let's see to our first houseguest."

* * *

The headmistress met them at the little door that led to the clearing in the woods, bearing a couple of bags that Amoretta recognized as the last of the everyday necessities that they had left behind that morning at the school.

Grabiner took the bags from the headmistress after she had crossed the threshold lightly. She stood in the stone courtyard, looking around approvingly as Grabiner closed the door behind her.

"Well, my turtle doves, I do have to say, it's a very nice place," she said delightedly. Then she glanced down at Amoretta's bare feet and noted, "You see, my duckling. I told you it was the season for it."

Amoretta could not help but notice that the headmistress was back to wearing her familiar buckled pumps and striped stockings.

Grabiner escorted them both into the house, where Cord met them at the door and offered to take hats, cloaks, bags and Amoretta's socks and shoes. Petunia Potsdam, being the only one wearing a cloak - a light summer shawl - gave her hat and cloak over pleasantly and had soon settled herself down by the fire without further invitation.

"Cord," Grabiner said, "Please inform Tansy that we'll have another for supper."

Petunia Potsdam politely clapped her hands approvingly. "Hieronymous, never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine you'd be such a considerate host."

She was already sitting with her feet propped up on an ottoman, her shoes discarded by the side of her chair.

"I could really enjoy a retirement like this, given my advanced age," she said sweetly, and seemed to be trying to look grandmotherly.

"I kindly suggest you seek accommodation  _elsewhere_ ," Grabiner growled, and unexpectedly planted his own foot against her ottoman and shoved it hard, so that her bare heels clumped against the stone.

"There's the winning personality I'm so familiar with," the headmistress chortled, then beckoned Amoretta over to her chair.

When she had given the bags to Grabiner, she had kept one prettily wrapped package in her own custody. This she gave to Amoretta.

"Open it, sweet pea," she suggested, and Amoretta did as she was told.

It turned out to be a jar of very nice honey, the comb still visible inside the golden liquid.

"A housewarming gift," explained the headmistress with a warm smile. "So that this house will always know the sweetness and richness of life, and the pleasure that comes out of toil."

Somewhat overcome by the headmistress's thought and her kindly offered words, Amoretta leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"You really have helped me so much," she hastened to explain, flushing a little. "Helped us both so much," she corrected, glancing sidelong at Grabiner, who had crossed his arms over his chest. He was watching their tableau silently, and he refrained from comment. "I want you to know how much we appreciate it."

"Yes, my darling," the headmistress chuckled, "I know just how much that  _you_ appreciate it," she said. "And don't worry, my chickadee. I plan to keep on helping you out for the foreseeable future."

"Oh, how fortunate," Grabiner remarked dryly, looking pointedly away from the two women.

At that moment, Cord appeared to announce that supper was served. He had been busy preparing the table while they had been chatting, and Amoretta saw that it had been set for three people.

Grabiner took the honey from her, and passed it to Cord, who departed to the kitchen with it. Then he silently motioned her toward the table.

Unsurprisingly, Petunia Potsdam required no further prompting.

As she approached the table, Amoretta realized that the three place settings were quite far apart. There were two at one end of the table, but the third was at the opposite end.

The headmistress had already moved to the single setting that was not at either end, and Grabiner seemed to be considering whether or not he felt like helping her to her seat.

_Oh,_  Amoretta realized.  _Everything's arranged like we're at a formal dinner. That's my chair at the other end of the table, because I'm the hostess._

She had attended a few formal dinners in her time under various circumstances, but she had never imagined that she'd be attending one on the first evening in her new home. Her hair was still braided and a bit flyaway from her long car trip, and her feet were bare.

Cord had already taken away her shoes, so she couldn't even put them on again to make herself feel better.

_Tansy is certainly right,_  she reflected.  _I really don't look like I ought to be the mistress of this house._

Still, she would do her best.

She took her place at the foot of the table.

* * *

Their supper was light and not overly complicated, and while the headmistress did linger a little after dinner, she soon departed.

"I shall leave the rosy doves to their nest!" she declared as she left.

Amoretta liked the sentiment, but Grabiner only rolled his eyes. He seemed to be relieved that once the headmistress passed through the little blue door, she was locked out until he decided otherwise. He escorted her to the door and saw her out himself, as if it gave him peace of mind.

Darkness had fallen during dinner, and when Amoretta lamented missing the first sunset at her new home, Grabiner comforted her by saying that inevitably there were many more summer sunsets to come. It  _was_ a comforting thought. The long summer lay spread before them, like a golden blanket. She was sure that by the time they went back to school in September, she would no longer be the girl she was now. She would have changed into a different self, while still being the same self. She had changed so much already, all while remaining the same.

Living was terribly complicated.

But then, that was what made it so interesting.

Although it was not yet nine o'clock according to the clock on the wall, Grabiner indicated that it was time for bed.

"You've had a very long day," he said, "And I'm sure you'll want to play about endlessly tomorrow. I'm not going to chance that you'll exhaust yourself. We have plenty of time for everything," he reminded her. "Until September, we're on no one's schedule but our own."

Although she was interested in more closely examining practically everything in the house, Amoretta had to admit that Grabiner was right. She was tired, and tomorrow wasn't so very far away.

They retired upstairs, and Grabiner left Amoretta in their new bedroom while he went to take a shower. Amoretta crossed the hallway to retrieve a book from the library and when she returned to the bedroom to sit thoughtfully on the top of Grabiner's trunk, something occurred to her.

"Kavus?" she asked tentatively.

In half a moment the blue djinni was with her in the bedroom.

"Yes, mistress?" he asked, waiting for her to offer the reason behind her summons.

Amoretta let out a sigh of relief.

"Well, I was worried about you," she admitted. "I guess it's been so busy that we haven't talked in awhile. What with the new house and all, I just wanted to make sure you hadn't been left behind."

This idea apparently amused the djinni.

"Thank you for your concern," he said with a half bow, "But I have been quite well. This environment suits me better than that of the school's in any case."

Amoretta tilted her head to the side. "How so?" she wondered. "It is very nice, and I like it very much, but why does it make such a difference to you?"

"It is a private home, and the master's domain, unlike the grounds of the academy, which are the domain of the potent witch who is the current inheritor of that color based magic, pentachromatic style," he said.

"Headmistress Potsdam?" Amoretta guessed, and the djinni nodded.

Although Amoretta had an inkling of how powerful the headmistress was, hearing the djinni speaking candidly of her with the respect that was evident in his voice put things into new perspective for her. Kavus was never one to stand on ceremony with his own master, and rarely offered anything but the most passing indication of his respect for Grabiner, outside of his general obedience.

"Beyond that, this place is in the near Other, and therefore closer to my own native environment than your own United States of America," the djinni commented with veiled amusement. "You must have felt it yourself. Magic is much richer here than it is out in the material world. Here it is omnipresent, like standing ankle deep in water."

Amoretta reflected that it was a strange analogy for the djinni to use, since he didn't even have ankles - none that she had ever seen at least.

Still, she nodded. "I did feel it when I came in here. The colors seemed brighter. The air seemed fresher. I guess what I'm feeling is the abundance of magic."

The djinni nodded once, simply.

"That is it," he said. "In your material world, in most places the magic is very thin. Of course it exists, but not in the quantity required to work powerful spells, or provide energy to complex magical artifacts. It is like a desert, with narrow courses of power running through it like rivers. That is what a wizard calls a 'ley line.' The corridors around these ley lines are like the floodplains where all those who are magic live. Of course, one can venture away from these sources and survive, but doing that is like living in the open desert: possible, but not easy, and rarely desirable." The djinni nodded his head once. "I was born in a place where magic is much thicker and deeper than this, so being on the prime material plane for extended periods of time is always uncomfortable for me."

"Ah!" Amoretta said, snapping her fingers. "You're like a slug who's drying out!"

The djinni looked at her a moment, completely unmoved, but then at last shrugged lightly.

"Yes, mistress," he agreed. "That is not an incorrect analogy."

Around this time Grabiner appeared fresh from the shower and Kavus retired as Amoretta was shooed into the bathroom herself.

She enjoyed a long, hot bath herself, taking the time to clean her shoulder and rebandage the wound carefully. She had learned enough during her month of intensive green magic study to be able to do her own basic wound care. She still needed Grabiner's help when it was very bad, but today it had not acted up. It was a serious injury, the black, bloody curse burn, and it always would be, but she was learning to live with it.

After her bath, she dried herself off with a fluffy towel that smelled of lavender, and then met Grabiner again in the bedroom, fresh and clean in her polkadot pajamas.

She crawled into the cabinet bed gleefully, as if she were a little girl at summer camp. The mattress of the cabinet bed was a bit narrower than the one she was used to, but that wasn't so very bad. She was accustomed to sleeping tied to Grabiner, and a smaller bed meant that she had that much more reason to curl up next to him.

Not that she really seemed to need much of an excuse, these days.

In the cabinet bed, there was no bedside reading lamp, and so she was obliged to read by a witchlight she conjured. She read for perhaps a half an hour, and then commenced to yawn hugely.

When he saw that she was ready to give up reading for the pleasures of sleep, he dismissed his own light and pulled the door of the bed closed, creating a small room like the inside of a treasure box.

"Did it meet all your hopes?" he wondered quietly as he settled into bed.

"Yes," she agreed immediately, as she crept very close to him. "Everything is wonderful," she said dreamily. "Better than a fairy tale, because all the witches are good, and I didn't even have to make any deals with Rumpelstiltskin to get it all." She let out a contented sigh. "But better than a house made out of candy, or donkey that grants wishes, the very very best thing about this place is you."

And Grabiner had nothing to say to that, although he did have the presence of mind to kiss her on the forehead as she drifted off to sleep.


	3. Two: I Heard a Rumor

Grabiner might have warned her that her new bed, hidden as it was inside a cabinet, was bound to be less comfortable than the one she was used to, but Amoretta had no complaints, because she slept soundly and without interruption. When she did wake up, it was all at once, her eyes snapping open according to some hidden internal chronometer. She didn't even suffer from fleeting drowsiness as she sat up in bed, the sheets slipping down around her like a shed skin.

Grabiner was quietly reclining in bed beside her, reading a newspaper one-handed, with the aid of one of his knees. She could smell the warm, musky scent of tea. One of the doors to the bed was open, and Amoretta could see the warm light of morning stretching its fingers across the boards in the floor. As she sat up, he shifted his eyes from the paper to her.

"Good morning," he said. "Sleep well?"

Amoretta nodded.

"Is that a witch newspaper?" she asked with interest, leaning forward to study the front page, which was braced against his knee.

The header typeface read 'the Quotidian Marvel' and she could just make out part of a front page illustration that featured several distinguished looking men and women in pointy hats. The front page headline seemed to be something to do with a 'Circle of Ten,' but most of it was obscured by Grabiner's knee.

"It is," Grabiner agreed. "It's printed in the Court of Figs, in New York, but it's generally considered an international paper, like Toronto's Daystar, and therefore worth reading."

"Not very interested in local politics?" she teased, and he shrugged blandly.

"In this day and age, local newspapers are not really my speed. They generally feature stories on which witch keeps the fattest resident feline, who has shown what orchid at the most recent horticultural show, and what play is being produced this season by the local community theater troupe," he remarked dryly. "I may be teaching at a school in the backwoods, but I'm not ready to be  _quite_ so bucolic."

"How cosmopolitan!" Amoretta congratulated, and Grabiner rolled his eyes.

He put down his paper and concentrated on untying their wrists. Amoretta pulled the paper toward her and studied the front page with interest as he untied the wide red ribbon, which had traveled to their new residence unscathed.

"There aren't any pictures!" she exclaimed suddenly as she leafed through the newspaper in mild confusion. It was the first time she had really looked at a witch periodical. She was accustomed to the lack of photographs in her textbooks, but surely in a newspaper -

"I know you're disappointed," Grabiner consoled her sardonically. "But I promise that they use very simple words that even a high school student ought to be able to understand."

Amoretta looked up at Grabiner with an expression that indicated exactly how amused she was by his comment, and then with no further warning she seized her own pillow and walloped him across the face with it, then calmly restored it to its former spot.

Grabiner, who had been caught entirely off-guard by this attack, sat back somewhat startled, his hair mussed.

"You know what I mean," Amoretta said pointedly, leaning over the newspaper in an accusatory fashion. "There aren't any photographs. It's all illustrations. I feel like there ought to be stories about the Battle of Bull Run."

He recovered himself quickly enough.

"That's because there are a lot of taboos concerning photography," he said. "They have to do with what is allowed to be recorded on film. Outside of very straightforward portraiture under controlled conditions, witches generally dispense with photography completely. There's still superstition and fear in some circles - not that the camera will steal one's soul, or any such absurdity," he scoffed, "But fear that photographs will lead to disclosure and discovery. Although there hasn't been a major breach of the velvet curtain in years, the fear that there will be hangs like the sword of Damocles over everyone. Witches fear very little more than they fear being outed to the world at large. This is the basis behind many of the codes of conduct. Fortunately for the Magistrates, this fear is in line with what they  _gently_ prescribe as the prevailing worldview."

Amoretta studied the newspaper pensively, flipping from one page to another to study the various illustrations. The sports section featured a leading article on flying basketball, and another on Bounders. The news section featured domestic news - generally things of concern to the continent of North America, as well as international news, which mostly seemed focused on the current conflict in the Middle East. There seemed to be at least  _some_ information on current events in most corners of the witch world, including news from the Otherworld. The pages of the newspaper were densely packed with text. As she looked from article to article, she couldn't help but realize that the state of the witch world was every bit as complex as the state of the mundane world, and mirrored it to a great degree. There front page story turned out to be about refugees from the war zone being accepted into the witch nation of Horizon as citizens. Children, of course, had to be relocated elsewhere.

Amoretta turned the pages of the newspaper slowly and carefully. There was a great deal of information about the war, which she hadn't really been following at all, since it had begun quite unexpectedly, at least so far as she could tell. But despite a number of articles, there were no pictures at all, only line drawings, some of which moved when she poked at them with her fingers. It was therefore very hard to get a good idea of what the war was like.

"It seems seems awfully sad that there are no pictures," she said after a moment, and Grabiner's brow wrinkled.

"How so?" he wanted to know.

Amoretta's own brow wrinkled as she struggled to put it into words. "Well, photography has changed human experience. Photography makes the world a much smaller place, because it brings distant places very close. I've never been to Lake Victoria, you know?" she said. "But I've seen pictures of it, so I know what it's like. I know that's not the same thing as going there, but it's a good approximation to help  _understand_ what it's like. Understanding is what breeds kindness," she said, as if there could be no doubt. "I think that since the advent of photography, the world has become a much kinder place."

"Despite the record of atrocities that photographs preserve?" Grabiner baited. "The war crimes, basic human rights violations, the poverty, the violence, the disease - "

Amoretta shook her head decisively. "No," she said. " _Because_  of all those things. With a photograph, terrible things become very real. With only words, I think it's easy for the human mind to shut out excessive horror, or even to justify it to themselves, but photographs are very difficult to deny. When you look at a photograph it's very easy to think ' _that person is like me_ ,' no matter how horrendous their circumstances. That's because you can see that they're a person just like you are, not just some words on a page, or numbers on a death toll. They're real, just like giraffes are real, just like the ocean is real, just like Mount Everest is real."

"Photographs don't lie?" he prompted critically, but again she shook her head.

"Oh, sometimes they do," she said with a smile. "But they're less circumspect than illustrations. An illustration is subjective. Photographs can be subjective too, but generally they're less so than illustrations, right? That's why we have photographs in a lot of field guides instead of illustrations. An illustration can be used as a teaching aid - like a diagram of a cell, or of a bird's wing - but for identification we use photographs."

"All this from a girl who won't sit for a yearbook photo," Grabiner frowned. "So your kinder world is really built on self-preservation, isn't it? Individuals only care about one another when they can see themselves suffering in a similar predicament and wish to avoid it. That's the kindness that photography has brought to the world. Forgive me if I do not believe that sounds particularly kind."

"The world is a very big place," Amoretta explained patiently, as if Grabiner might have been a small child. "It's so big and so filled with people that it's very difficult for human beings to understand, a lot of the time. Photographs are a thing that human beings invented to help them understand the big, complicated world. That's something that human beings do: when the world is too difficult for us to understand, we invent a framework, so we can understand it more easily. Photographs are a very powerful way of sharing information. They can easily communicate very difficult ideas, even through a language barrier. Kindness comes from understanding," she repeated herself.

Grabiner shrugged. "You have some very strange ideas," he told her, and it was neither the first time nor the last time that he said it. "I sometimes don't think you properly understand and use words the way other people understand them and use them."

"I understand them the way I understand them," Amoretta said with an apologetic shrug and a smile.

"There's no taboo against the witchborn looking at photographs," Grabiner reminded her seriously as he pushed open the other cabinet door and got out of bed. "There's only a taboo about witches  _taking_ them."

Amoretta shook her head. "But that just means that you're spectators of human society, and not participants," she said with a frown.

"We're," Grabiner corrected, and Amoretta was momentarily confused. He offered her his hand, so that she could scramble out of bed. "We're," he repeated as she took his hand and let her feet come to settle on the floor. " _We're_  just spectators." He shook his head. "You're awfully philosophical for it being so early in the morning. What happened? Did you sleep on a book of dialectics?"

"What time is it?" she wanted to know.

"Just eight," he said as he put his slippers on. "I told Tansy to have breakfast ready in a half-hour, so you have time to get dressed."

"I hope there's lots to eat," Amoretta said as she stretched, curving her back and crossing her wrists over her head. "Because all this philosophy has made me very hungry."

As if to verify the honesty of this statement, her stomach took that moment to growl very loudly.

* * *

Amoretta had ample time to get dressed before breakfast was served. At first she was at something of a loss as to what to wear. Her new clothes had only been ordered the day before and wouldn't be ready until near the end of the month, and she couldn't very well wear her school uniform around the house. She could just imagine what kind of impression that would make on Tansy, who already seemed hellbent on disliking her. Outside of her school clothing, her wardrobe was relatively thin. Her father had promised to bring the rest of her clothing from home the next time he stopped to visit, but there was really no telling when he would find the time, since the summer was a busy season for a professional gambler. Even if he did bring every last sock and skirt from the little New Hampshire farmhouse, it really wouldn't amount to all that much. Amoretta had never had a particularly large wardrobe. She had a small collection of favorite things that she wore regularly, and not much besides. Honestly, she probably had more socks than anything else.

Looking over the clothes she had taken to school with her the previous September, Amoretta really couldn't settle on anything that looked grown up and dignified enough to satisfy the Tansy in her head, so eventually she gave up and just wore her old pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt. There was still a lot to explore around the house, so she might as well be comfortable while doing it.

Downstairs, Grabiner was lounged in one of the chairs in the sitting room, still reading his newspaper as he waited to be called to breakfast. Glancing sidelong at the dining room table, Amoretta saw that had been set similarly to the night before, despite the fact that they had no houseguests.

_That's just silly,_  she thought to herself.  _It's fine to do it to make company feel more at ease, but there's no reason for us to sit at opposite ends of the table when we're alone. Otherwise we'll have to install telegraph lines, or use semaphore flags to communicate._

The table wasn't really  _that_ big, but it was the principle of the thing.

Therefore, without comment, she went over to the dining room table and picked the plate and silverware and began moving her setting to the spot immediately at the host's right, where Petunia Potsdam had sat the night before.

She heard the rustle of the newspaper as she did so, and looked over her shoulder to find Grabiner watching her with a sly smile. He was clearly amused.

"I'm not going to sit all the way down there!" she said defensively.

Grabiner shrugged, and said, "Sit anywhere you like. I don't care in the slightest."

Although relieved she didn't have to fight Grabiner on their seating arrangements, his comment also left her slightly miffed, and she turned her back on the table to plant her hands on her hips.

"You might have said something nice, like, 'Food tastes better when I get to eat it sitting next to you,'" she said.

Grabiner snorted. "Yes," he said dryly. "Sunshine of my life, without you, everything tastes like ash." His delivery was so deadpan that Amoretta let out a great sigh.

"I think that made me feel worse, and not better," she said with a pout.

Grabiner turned back to his paper, saying, "If I really began spouting rubbish like that, I'm sure you'd think I had a fever and was delirious." He paused and then added, "For the record, if I do begin spouting rubbish like that, I am probably delirious. Call a doctor."

Amoretta rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the dining table, so she could finish arranging her place. To her surprise, it had already been relocated and properly rearranged while she had stood with her back to the table.

Cord was standing nearby, with his arms folded behind his back.

Realizing that he had finished what she had set out to do, Amoretta gave him her smile.

"Thanks an awful lot, Cord," she said.

He nodded his head once and smiled back at her.

"Should I have the table set like this in the future, ma'am?" he asked courteously.

Amoretta nodded. "When there isn't company," she said. "I'd like that." She paused, biting her lip. "Tansy isn't going to like it, is she?" she asked, lowering her voice to a whisper.

Cord shrugged and said. "I doubt it, but then, it is your table, ma'am."

Grabiner, who was pretending to read his newspaper, but actually eavesdropping on their conversation, interjected, saying, "Do what you like. That's one of the privileges of having one's own house. You don't have to take a survey of how you ought to behave. If that's where you'd like to sit, then that is where you ought to sit. Tansy isn't the queen."

Amoretta laughed, a little embarrassed that she had gotten so worked up.

"I guess she's not," she admitted.

"No," Grabiner said evenly, eying her steadily over the newspaper. "You are."

Amoretta's cheeks went pink, and she turned around in place in sudden embarrassment.

Across the room, she heard Grabiner sigh.

"That wasn't an effusive compliment," he grunted, "Just a statement of fact. You are the mistress of this house. You have authority over everyone in it with the exception of me," he said. "Additionally, you are ultimately responsible for the actions of everyone here, with the exception of me. The headmistress is the queen of Iris Academy.  _You_ are the queen here. Does that give you a better understanding of your position?"

Amoretta's cheeks were still pink, but his patient explanation had done a great deal to steady her nerves. She nodded once. "After all," she said. "There's more to being queen than just getting your way all the time."

Grabiner raised one eyebrow quizzically, but it was clear he didn't have the context for her joke. It wasn't really all that surprising. She didn't think he went to see many movies, and when he did, movies about singing lions were probably not at the top of his list.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cord touch his ear briefly, where he wore a golden stud as an earring. He seemed to be listening to something, and then he nodded once as he said, "Sir, ma'am, breakfast is ready. If you'd be seated."

Although Amoretta had been concerned about Tansy's reaction to her change in seating at the table, she found she faced no immediate repercussions for it. Tansy didn't appear during breakfast at all, and so Amoretta was spared her commentary. The breakfast she had provided was delicious, though, and went quite a ways to convincing Amoretta that Tansy was a person worth befriending, whatever her flaws might be. It was simple and straightforward, but plentiful, and Amoretta ended up eating six pieces of buttered toast before she was quite full.

As breakfast wound to a close, Amoretta wondered thoughtfully what they were going to do for the day, and Grabiner indicated that he planned on spending the day working. As for what Amoretta did with herself, that was entirely up to her, although Grabiner warned her not to tire herself out.

"Exercise in moderation is fine, so long as you periodically take rests," he said. "For the next few days, feel free to do what you like as you get accustomed to the place. Once we're fully settled, I'll begin teaching you again."

"Home is my school away from school," Amoretta teased, and Grabiner shrugged.

"You married into the institution of education," he agreed. "Which I suppose is fortunate for you, since you certainly have enough to learn." He stopped to consider something carefully for a moment, then said, "You are not to go scribbling chalk circles anywhere, young lady, is that clear?" He gave her a very steady look, "At least not until you've had some further instruction in the subject."

"Yes, sir," Amoretta chorused obediently, although she was clearly somewhat disappointed by this limitation on her liberty.

She hadn't really been planning on it, but now that he had forbidden the drawing of circles, she suddenly wanted to do just that.

"Very well," he said, and seemed to be satisfied by her word of honor.

"What are you going to be working on?" Amoretta asked curiously, and Grabiner pointedly looked away.

"My own private research," was all he had to say, and Amoretta knew he was unwilling to talk about it. It made her a little uncomfortable to face this unpleasant truth right in the middle of an otherwise agreeable breakfast, but it was what it was: there were secrets between them.

All she could do was accept it, for now.

Laughing a little artificially, she attempted to cover the sudden feeling of discomfort that had pervaded the remains of their breakfast.

"A whole day on my own, with no schoolwork to worry about, and no reading for class, no mail to deliver, and no club meetings!" she said. "I almost don't know what to do with myself."

Grabiner raised one eyebrow. "As for that," he said, "I have some suggestions."

Curious, Amoretta followed him up the stairs to the first floor, and to the one bedroom that Grabiner had not exhibited to her on the tour the previous day. As he led her into the room, it became immediately clear to Amoretta why he had not shown it to her.

The room had dozens and dozens of wrapped boxes in it. It looked a little like warehouse storage for a birthday party. She tried to estimate the number based on quick counting, but gave up once she passed the two hundred mark.

"What is all this?" she wanted to know.

"Wedding presents," Grabiner answered briefly, leaning back against the frame of the door and crossing his arms over his chest. "Once my father got wind of our marriage, it seems he relayed that information to practically everyone on the planet. Most of these were already here the first time I came to inspect the property, but every now and then a few late stragglers turn up in the mailbox."

Amoretta was already examining a box wrapped in heavy cream colored paper with strange silver figures painted all over it. It rang like a chorus of tiny bells when she picked it up and turned it around. Gingerly she put the box back on top of the stack she had taken it from.

"So many," she said with mild amazement. "You must be very popular," she teased. "But we had a small, private wedding," she said, because that was the nicest way she could think of to relate the evening she had spent in the dungeons, when he had left her standing at the altar after having traded vows with her. "I really didn't expect any wedding presents at all," she stopped and looked around herself, flushing slightly. "I mean, other than  _this house_ , which is admittedly, quite a present - "

"I had hoped there wouldn't be any," Grabiner said dryly. "As you recall, I never intended our marriage to become the stuff of the society page." He looked sidelong into the room filled with gaily wrapped gifts, and then shrugged slightly. "I suppose that all things being equal, it ended up for the best," he said. "Now that our circumstances have changed, your deserve to enjoy the minor pleasures of your position. In this case it would be formal correspondence."

"Correspondence?" she asked, turning her head to the side.

"Thank you notes," he clarified.

Amoretta looked at the gifts with new understanding. "Thank you notes?" she asked incredulously. "For all of these? Hieronymous, I don't have any idea who these are from." She moved back to the chiming box and consulted the note attached. "Who're Lord and Lady Aylesbury? I haven't any idea at all. How am I supposed to write thank you notes to people I don't know anything about?"

Grabiner frowned briefly at the mention of the names. "You'll have the use of my address book, naturally, and if you must have it, there's a Who's Who in the library. You may find yourself in a quandary, but I assure you it's not that abnormal. You aren't the first girl who married into society she knew nothing about."

"But you actually know these people, don't you?" she said. "Shouldn't you write the thank you letters?"

He leveled a steady look at her. "Stop trying to duck out of your responsibilities," he advised. "You were absolutely wild about stepping into the role of Lady Halifax, weren't you? This is what Lady Halifax does. She writes courteous thank you notes in recognition of niceties done for her."

Amoretta stared at the gifts with resignation. "It's not that I have anything against thank you notes," she said. "I think it's nice to send them, certainly when you've been given a present, but - " She turned back to him in confusion, "Why did we get so many presents in the first place? We didn't even have any wedding guests."

"Because my family is well-known: both famous and infamous," Grabiner said grimly. "Don't imagine it's because any of these people actually care for me, let alone for you. Witches love to give gifts, and gens Grabiner is old and prestigious enough that people seem to be willing to forgive the fact they were not invited to our wedding." He made a noncommittal move with his body. "Honestly, it's questionable how many of these gifts came from people I know by anything more than reputation. I'm really not that much more equipped to write thank you letters than you are. I haven't taken any part in society since - " He paused and deliberately looked away again. "Since I left school."

Amoretta frowned slightly. "If that's the way you really feel," she said. "Then I'm surprised you want me to write thank you letters at all. Usually you hate - " she struggled for words.

"Keeping up appearances?" he supplied, and then his grim mouth softened slightly, as if he appreciated being found out, at least by her. "I do. But graciousness is an important element of our culture. Our marriage has been honored with recognition. The giving of gifts is an ancient tradition, and must be respected." He looked away again. "It is possible to go against the tide of society," he said slowly. "But at the end of that path, there are no open doors. I know, as I have been there," he sounded very bitter. "I might have continued to live my life that way had I remained alone, as I intended, but I will not make a pariah of you, as you've done nothing to deserve it other than to unwisely cast your lot in with me. I may not want to be Baron Halifax, but to the world at large, that is who I am. Eventually I will be the Viscount Montague. That is a destiny I have no way of changing, no matter how much I might wish to."

Amoretta could not help but go to him then, putting her small hands on his arm.

"Hieronymous, you don't have to be anyone you don't want to be," she insisted. "Not on my account. I don't care who other people want you to be. I just want you to be happy. I'll be happy no matter where we are or what our life is like, so long as I'm with you. I don't care if it's hard. I'm not afraid of it being hard."

"I know," he said, and his smile was very brief, but it was warm. "You're a silly little idiot who would carry the world on her back if she thought there was a reason for it. You want to do everything the hard way, because it's the only way you can think of to do it," he said. "It's my responsibility to protect you, and accepting my place in society is one of the most effective ways I can do that. That doesn't mean we suddenly have to become the cream of the smart set," he looked down at her critically, "Miracles remain beyond my power," he said, and her mouth turned down in a pout, until he brought his hand to her face and tapped her nose lightly with his index finger. "We will never be fashionable people. We need only be polite and civil. The name is old enough and the family has enough status that it guarantees us a place anywhere. After all, as unconventional as our marriage might be, it is fortunately not scandalous or otherwise objectionable, which is more than can be said of my father's various liaisons. We will escape being the black sheep only because he is  _blacker,_  which is naturally advantageous for us. Of course, he can be as villainous as he pleases and get away with it largely unscathed because he is the head of the family, and much is tolerated from the head of a family, particularly one as old as ours. Considering that we are thoroughly more socially acceptable, we will be received if we make only the barest effort."

Amoretta laughed weakly. "And you haven't been doing that," she pointed out.

"Making the barest effort?" Grabiner asked. "No," he agreed. "I have not. I had no reason to," he said. "But I can stand a little discomfort in this case. I'll shoulder the burden of being Lord Halifax, so you resolve yourself on being Lady Halifax. At the moment, that means writing letters." He put his arm around her shoulders. "Don't agonize over it. It will be years before I'll expect you to do anything more substantial than that. I'm a school teacher, Amoretta," he reminded her patiently, "And I intend to remain one for the foreseeable future." He looked at her steadily. "And regardless of who we are to the rest of the world, between the two of us - "

"You'll always be my horrible magic professor, the one who gives me detention for no reason, and never laughs at my jokes, no matter how funny they are, but was willing to love me, even though he knew it was a terrible idea," Amoretta supplied with a smile.

"I had excellent reasons for giving you each of those detentions, no matter what your father might think about it," he said. "You're certainly the worst student I've ever had, who can't leave well enough alone, never listens, and is always at the center of a storm of trouble," he counted out, then put his hands on her shoulders. "That being said, you're my favorite juvenile delinquent."

"So long as we're clear," she said, and she felt much better about everything.

* * *

Before he departed for his workshop, Grabiner cautioned her that she ought not tire herself out by trying to write too many thank you letters at one sitting. Correspondence could be more exhausting than running a marathon, he told her, and he seemed to be speaking from personal experience. She was still recovering, after all, and the last thing either of them wanted was for her to end up confined to bed during her summer holiday. Half a dozen letters would be more than enough for her first day, and she could spend the rest of the time as she liked: reading, exploring, or simply lazing around.

She would find stationery, pens, and ink in her writing desk. She ought to use a fountain pen to write her letters, because she wouldn't get suitable ink flow out of a ballpoint pen. There were some etiquette guides on her desk if she needed them, and anything she wasn't certain about she could always put to the side, to ask him about in the evening. Cord would be on hand to help with the unpacking and the lifting, and would likely be able to answer most of her questions himself.

Grabiner related all of this casually, as if he had said nothing of note, but Amoretta threw her hands up in front of her chest in an 'x' as if flagging a vehicle to stop.

"Wait," she said in confusion. "I have a writing desk?"

That small smile appeared at the corner of Grabiner's mouth, the one that meant he was enjoying himself, yet trying not to show it.

"You do," he agreed seriously. "It's in your study."

Amoretta's study turned out to be a small but cheerful room off their bedroom. Grabiner had waved it off the evening before as being a dressing room, but when the folding door was pushed back, a pretty little room was revealed, with a window that looked out on the garden. There was a writing desk against the wall made of golden wood, slender and elegant, but quite functional. She had her own lamp that had a shade of painted glass, a comfortable armchair and a footstool, and a little folding shelf which thoughtfully held her own textbooks, and a number of other useful reference books that Grabiner apparently judged to her speed. Best of all was a little table in front of the window where her pet geranium Vivian sat basking in the sun.

"After all," Grabiner said very practically, "Even if you aren't ready for a workshop of your own, you do need a quiet place to read and study."

Amoretta laughed out loud and wrapped both of her arms around one of his and swung on it like a delighted child.

"All for me," she said with amazement and pleasure. "You arranged all of this for me. You thought about everything I might like, and you put it right in here, so I'd have a place all my own."

Cotton-tail and the Black Rabbit had been carefully put together in the seat of the little arm chair.

She laughed again, apparently deeply amused. "You're so funny, Hieronymous."

Grabiner, who had been enjoying her pleasure while at the same time assuring himself that everything had been arranged for strictly practical purposes, flushed slightly at her unexpected remark.

"What do you mean by that?" he demanded stiffly.

"Oh nothing," she assured him with a warm smile. "Just, you're very sweet. No one expects it of you, and I ought to by now, but you still surprise me. I can just imagine you shopping for a rug embroidered with rosebuds," she giggled into her hands, wriggling her socked feet against the rosebud rug that was spread across the floor behind the desk. "No wonder everyone in the Court of Figs is talking about our marriage. You've been out buying me all sorts of presents for the last month, at least. I don't think anyone expected that you bought this cushion for yourself," she said, picking up a pillow that leaned against the chair. It had a needlepoint cover featuring a garden of tulips being visited by butterflies.

"I might have," he said defensively, looking away. His cheeks were still slightly flushed. She had put him on the spot and he was embarrassed.

"Well, if you like it so very much, I might be persuaded to allow you to keep it," she teased, and when he rolled his eyes she tugged on his arm again. "Really, Hieronymous, I like it very much, and it was wonderful of you to go to the time and effort. I really do appreciate it. I'm sorry for teasing you about it, you just make the best faces. It's adorable."

"It has been a very long time," Grabiner said, with one eyebrow raised, "Since anyone called me 'adorable.'"

"Well, that's what you are," Amoretta assured, over her shoulder. She was already busy rummaging around in the drawers in her desk, making delighted noises whenever she uncovered another thoughtful present tucked into a corner.

"Perhaps I ought to buy you a dictionary," he said, eyeing her small bookshelf. "Because I really am not very certain you know what you're saying half of the time."

And with that, he departed.

* * *

Cord turned up, just as Grabiner had promised, and the two of them went from her cheery study to the spare bedroom, where Amoretta ambitiously selected seven of the boxes to unwrap. Cord brought them back into the master bedroom and arranged them near the open door to Amoretta's study. While he was moving the boxes one by one, as many were bound to be fragile like the chiming box, Amoretta sat at her desk and read through the marked sections of the three etiquette guides Grabiner had left for her. Two of them were general etiquette guides that might have been turned up from any mundane library - although they both had publication dates from well before even Grabiner's year of birth - while the third was apparently an etiquette guide specifically for witches.

Each of the three guides had quite a lot to say about writing proper thank you letters. They all stressed good penmanship, correct forms of address, and even what sort of writing paper ought to be used. They did differ a bit on what sort of things a social letter ought to say, however. One valued style and form and smartness above all, while the second suggested adopting a tone of conversational friendliness. In the end, it seemed as if she ought to be friendly, but not too familiar, polite but not stiff, gracious, but not overbearing, aware of herself, and yet not pretentious.

As Cord brought in the last of the boxes, Amoretta pensively leaned her cheek against her palm.

"This all seems awfully complicated," she said. "No wonder Hieronymous said writing letters was more exhausting than running a marathon. I'm not even really sure how to start, I mean, except the obvious 'Dear So and So.'"

Cord smiled at that, then said, "Why don't we start by opening one of the boxes, ma'am?"

It was a good suggestion, since she couldn't begin writing a thank you note for something she hadn't even unwrapped.

"Good idea," she said, and then went to join Cord on the floor with a pair of pretty scissors that had been engraved to look like a long beaked bird, another treasure from her writing desk. She sat on her heels like she might have been waiting her turn at a playground, and watched with intense interest as he unwrapped and unpacked the first of the wedding gifts.

It was a vase of delicate china, with a garden scene painted in bold red on a white field: a perfect example of Chinoiserie.

"Well," Amoretta said appraisingly, "I guess you give the same sorts of wedding presents whether you're a witch or a regular person. I'm not entirely sure what I expected, but that's very normal. It doesn't fly or produce endless yeasted rolls or anything else peculiar, does it?" she asked Cord, tilting her head to the side.

He shook his head. "No ma'am," he said. "I think it's an ordinary vase for displaying cut flowers."

"Good," she said with a confident nod of her head. "I know what to do with something like that."

At Cord's suggestion she noted the date, the occasion, the type of gift, and who had given it down in one of the simple blank notebooks she found in her desk.

"That's one way you can always appear gracious. No one remembers who gave them what bath towel two years after it was given, although it is  _expected_ that you remember. If you keep a book of all the gifts you receive, you can keep track not only of who sent what, but when they sent it. It's also useful if you need to send a gift and haven't got the foggiest idea of what to send," he told her. "You can look and see what kinds of things have been sent to you, and plan from there."

"That's a brilliant idea," she congratulated Cord as she looked at the little notebook she had started. "You've got to remind me to write them all down though, otherwise I'll never remember to do it."

"Yes, ma'am," he said with a brisk nod, and Amoretta looked up from writing in the gift notebook briefly as he did.

"Just Amoretta," she confided. "I mean, we're about the same age, and you obviously know more about this than I do. I guess, I don't know, maybe if someday you think I've really become like a lady, you can call me ma'am if you like, but I feel like you make the word mean less if you use it on someone it really doesn't belong to."

"I'm afraid you're going to have to get used to it, ma'am, even if you don't think you merit it," Cord said seriously, and Amoretta could see he meant to be kind. "People will call you 'madam,' and 'my lady,' because that's your station."

"Oh, I know they will," Amoretta said with a weak laugh, "And I know I'll have to get used to it, even if it makes me feel like Johnny on the Spot, but that's different. That's who I have to be for other people, not who I have to be for myself. It's like having a part in a play. When I'm playing pretend as Lady Halifax, or whoever it is I'm supposed to be, then you can call me ma'am, or madam, or my lady, or whatever you're supposed to call me, but when we're by ourselves, or just with Hieronymous, call me Amoretta. It's like the silverware at breakfast. If it's just family, it's different than if there are people around. Even I know that."

"You're a very genuine person," Cord observed. "Like Mr. Grabiner. That's very brave."

Amoretta laughed. "It's not very brave," she denied, shaking her head, "Because I don't have any idea of how to behave differently. That's like thinking a dolphin is very clever because it's good at swimming. It isn't very good at traveling through the desert, so it's probably best to remember all the things that I'm terrible at before you go admiring me. For one thing, Hieronymous is convinced that I absolutely cannot keep out of trouble. If there isn't any trouble around, he says that I feel obliged to invent some, so I'll feel at home."

"Do you?" Cord asked with a smile.

"Probably," Amoretta admitted with an impish wink. "Although really, it's more like trouble finds me. I don't really make it up, but it comes out of the woodwork if I'm around. I guess it's a really good thing that I'm lucky. Trouble really doesn't bother me, though. It's  _interesting_. I'm pretty sure the only people who don't have trouble at least some of the time are the dead." She leaned back in her chair. "So what does the note card attached to the vase say?"

"John Morris Fox," he read out, and she obediently flipped through the Which Witch is Which which turned out to be the witch world's Who's Who.

The Fox family turned up easily enough, although there was only a brief word about John Morris, who seemed to be the younger son of the family. His father was a long standing MP from the witch constituency of Whitewood, and his mother notable for her record-setting unaided broom flights over the open ocean.

The entry ended up not being that helpful in determining how John Morris Fox knew her husband, if at all. The address book was equally unhelpful, although Grabiner did have the address noted, which indicated that he was at least somewhat familiar with John Morris Fox Esq.

"I suppose I'll just write what the books say is customary: 'thank you for remembering us with your kind gift, etc. etc.'" she said. "At least I have good use for a vase. I suppose I'll write that the garden is full of flowers, so the vase is sure to be beautifully adorned. That's personal enough, don't you think?" she asked Cord. Her teeth were pressed against her bottom lip because she was thinking very hard about what to write, as if she might have been facing a very difficult examination.

"That sounds excellent," Cord reassured her with a pat on the shoulder, like he might have been her brother.

With this vote of confidence, Amoretta set to very carefully write out the body of the note. When she finished she passed the letter over to Cord for final approval, while she busied herself writing out the address.

"It sounds all right, doesn't it? It doesn't sound as if it comes from a high school student, does it?" she worried. "I don't want to embarrass Hieronymous," she flushed, "And honestly I'd rather not embarrass myself either."

"You won't embarrass anyone," Cord said. "It's polite, but it isn't too stiff, and it isn't particularly effusive. It's ladylike."

"Well," Amoretta said with a laugh, "I wasn't really trying to be ladylike, but I suppose that's something."

She took the letter back from Cord and sealed it up in the envelope she had just addressed.

Conveniently there were several little pigeon holes on the back of her desk to store letters in. In earlier days, Amoretta might have used the cubbies to secret away bird feathers, pretty stones, and interesting nuts, but now she found that she needed them for their intended purpose.

"I suppose I ought to label them," she said.

Grabiner had given her to understand that these would not be the last letters she would be required to write as Lady Halifax. That wasn't so bad. Amoretta like writing letters well enough.

She took time out from opening the wedding gifts to carefully label one of the little cubbies 'outgoing' while labeling the other 'incoming,' after which she felt very grown up indeed. Then she stood and stretched - although she had so far only completed one thank you letter - and leaned across the desk to open up the window behind it.

A pleasant breeze came into the study with the window open, and the lace curtains fluttered. With the window open, the scent of blooming woodbine was in the air, as well as the sound of birdsong: pleasant but unfamiliar except for the cardinal.

_No worries,_  she thought to herself as she looked out the window into the garden.  _I have time to learn these birds. Soon they'll be my friends and neighbors as much as the blackbirds and the orioles and the chickadees._

"It's such a nice day," she said to Cord, basking in the sunshine like a cat. "We may as well enjoy it by opening a window."

"Every day here will be a pleasant day," Cord assured her, "Unless you'd like the weather to be different."

"How funny," Amoretta said, "To turn the weather up and down, like it's a thermostat." She shook her head. "Anyway, it doesn't matter if every day is nice, that's still no reason to take them for granted. All right!" she took a deep breath, "Which package should we open next?"

They did three more packages without incident, and Amoretta wrote letters in thanks for a pair of blankets that Cord identified as cashmere, a set of crystal decanters, and a collection of cheese knives with bone handles. Much to Amoretta's delight, the gregarious cardinal came and sat on the sill to watch them as they worked, singing and chirping and chortling, as if to offer his own opinions on the gifts.

At last they came to the chiming box, the one Amoretta had examined that morning, and when Cord unwrapped it, it turned out to be the most exotic and unusual of the gifts she had yet seen. It was a clock, she thought, but the face was suspended in a complicated set of wheels that rotated as the clock ticked. There were two other smaller clock faces set on wheels around the larger one, and they were constantly in motion. All three of the faces told different times, and there were a number of crystal weights that dangled from the various faces on chains, apparently connected to some clockwork within, and this accounted for the chiming. All of this kept turning and moving in space quite hypnotically, and astonishingly without any piece colliding with any other piece.

Cord was happy to explain the strange timepiece to her, which was for the best, because Amoretta was at a complete loss. Surely it told time, but as to what sort of time it told, she had no guesses.

"It keeps true time in multiple timefields at once," he said. "Very convenient if one is always going from one place to another. This is local time," he pointed at the main face, "This is the time in London," he pointed to one of the smaller fades, "And this is the time in Horizon," he pointed to the third face. "It's probably most useful if you need to keep track of relative time in the case of local distortions. Of course, you can set the faces to any timefield you like. This is a particularly beautiful piece. I believe it's an antique."

Amoretta nodded at this explanation, because it seemed clear enough to her.

"I think we'll leave it as it is for the moment," she said. "I don't have any idea what other times I'd set it to, really," she admitted. "What a wonderful present," she said. "Much more interesting than cheese knives, although those are useful in their own way, I guess. Particularly if you want to cut up cheese."

She wrote out a very pleasant thank you note to Lord and Lady Aylesbury. Lord Aylesbury was Baron Aylesbury, Richard Marvell, the eldest son of the Viscount Maule, and held the distinction of being a Magistrate Inquisitor. His wife Honoria was noted as being a philanthropist with many charitable causes, as well as the daughter of the Viscount Hyde.

They seemed like very important people to Amoretta. It took Cord to remind her that her own husband was in the book she was holding as well, and that she would surely be listed in next year's printing.

"Good grief," she said. "I hadn't thought of that. Well, at least there aren't any pictures," she said philosophically. Unlike the regular Who's Who, the witch edition did not feature photographs, only text. Although her new notoriety as the wife of Lord Halifax left her with nagging uncertainty, there wasn't much she could do about it now. She couldn't  _un_ marry him, nor did she want to. "I wonder what they'll put in mine? Marianne Amoretta Grabiner, daughter of the noted professional gambler Noir Suzerain, married her professor Hieronymous Grabiner unexpectedly during the spring term of her freshman year, after a romantic spate of detentions. Her talents include a very mediocre foxtrot and the ability to identify most songbirds found in the state of New Hampshire. Once befriended a skunk." She laughed, "Not very impressive, is it?"

"You're just starting out," Cord said with a reassuring smile. "You have plenty of time to do all sorts of impressive things."

"You're right," she agreed. "Not all horses are winners right out of the gate. Besides, I already managed to marry Hieronymous, pretty much against his will. That's nearly as impressive as scaling K2." She leaned her cheek thoughtfully against her palm and looked out the window into the garden. "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question, Cord?"

"You can ask," he said, "And I'll do my best to answer, but I'm not very good with embarrassing questions," he warned.

"It's not embarrassing," she assured him, "Or at least it shouldn't be. I was just wondering why you decided to come and work here. You're a brownie, right? You don't have any affiliation to Hieronymous's family the way Tansy does. I got the impression that a brownie joining a household is really good fortune from what little I learned about it this year. I"m sorry if it's an awkward question, or one I'm not supposed to ask. I was just curious."

"Well," he said, "There was an advertisement." Cord was smiling a complicated smile, one that was mixed with memory and regret and loss. "I didn't intend to reply, but my mother thought I ought to, so I did, even though I really had no interest in it. Then I met Mr. Grabiner. He wasn't really what I expected, given - well, given everything, I guess," he laughed a little awkwardly. "I can't really say what either of us wanted going into the meeting. He didn't seem keen on really having anyone, and I wasn't keen on accepting, but I must have struck him favorably, because he offered me the position right on the spot. I guess I took it because he seemed like he needed looking after."

Amoretta smiled back sympathetically, "He really does need looking after," she agreed. "He can be a very difficult person, but he is a good man."

"You need looking after too," Cord said seriously, then smiled again. "I'm glad I came here. It's a good place."

"I'm glad you came here too," Amoretta said. "Otherwise I'd be muddling through all of this on my own." She could not help but look slightly green at the prospect. "It's good to have friends," she said, then flushed a little awkwardly as she fidgeted with the bird handled scissors. "I hope we can be friends. I know we've just met, but I would like to be friends."

"I think that's likely," Cord said with a slow smile, "I was nervous yesterday, because I wasn't sure what you'd be like, but it turned out alright after all."

"What, am I your type?" Amoretta teased, sticking out her tongue.

"Yes," Cord answered quite unflappably, and Amoretta was so surprised by this cool admission that she burst out laughing.

"You are obviously a  _heartbreaker_ , Cord," Amoretta giggled.

He was happy to explain his meaning. "You're just my type of mistress," he said. "Silly, impossible, and sweet: a lady who gets into trouble. Even when things don't turn out, it's all right because you  _mean well_ , and everyone knows it." He sounded nostalgic at the end of his little speech, a little wistful, a little sad. Amoretta didn't think it was right to press him to tell what he was thinking about, but hoped he might share it in the future.

With a warm and comfortable rapport established between them, they unpacked another box, which turned out to be a handsome leather bound folio of sheet music, and then proceeded to the final box, which was something of a conundrum.

The note attached read Lord and Lady Aylesbury.

"Do you suppose they've sent us two presents?" Amoretta wondered in confusion. "That's a little unusual for magical folks, isn't it? The other present was so impressive, too. Maybe it was a mistake? Or is this some witch thing I don't understand?"

Amoretta was turning over the idea that there might be some symbolism behind the gifts she had so far unwrapped, and was wondering what significance cheese knives might have when Cord interrupted her.

"It is a little strange," he agreed. "I believe the only people with rights to give multiple wedding gifts are close family members."

"Well, maybe they're cousins or something," Amoretta worried. "Should I have addressed the other note to the Marvells 'Dear Cousin?'"

"They probably are cousins," Cord attempted to calm her agitation by waving her down with a hand. "Most witch folks are related to most other witch folks if you go back far enough."

This gave Amoretta pause.

"Well, that's a little worrying," she said.

Cord laughed. "It's not as bad as you're imagining. It's not a lot of first cousins marrying," he paused, and then added, "Well, at least not often. There's enough new blood that comes from outside the community that there's diversity, but old families have long genealogical histories. I'd be surprised if Mr. Grabiner wasn't related to both Lord Aylesbury and Lady Aylesbury separately."

"Maybe I should ask him, then," she said. "There aren't any special notes in the address book," she said, rattling her fingertips against the leather, "But maybe that's just because it's so obvious to him that he wouldn't write it down. I wouldn't write 'Cousin Jane,' if I had one, would I? I'd just know she was my cousin." Amoretta shrugged very practically, and then turned her attention to the box. "Let's open it and see what it is. Maybe it's something to go with the clock, although I can't really think what it could be."

But opening the box only deepened the mystery. It was a very beautiful present, although obviously in no way related to the gift of the clock. It was a lovely porcelain sculpture, delicately painted with the pale flush of life, of flowers that rose on stems so slender and graceful and lifelike that they might have been found growing in the garden, perhaps near a fairy circle of mushrooms.

But although the flower sculpture was beautiful, as she looked at it, Amoretta could not help but squirm uncomfortably in place.

They were very familiar flowers, as common as daisies growing along the roadside, and Amoretta had known them her whole life.

Violets.

Someone had sent them violets.

Amoretta looked at Cord in confusion, her cheeks a little flushed. Cord was staring at the sculpture as if struggling to understand its meaning.

At last, Amoretta worked up the nerve to speak.

"Isn't this a little - "

Cord cut her off with a frown, "Yes," he said. "It's in extremely bad taste."

"Maybe they didn't - " she tried, but he was already shaking his head.

"I doubt that," he said. "Everyone knows. It was a famous inquisitorial case at the time. It made headlines in the international papers for weeks. You can't hear his name without thinking - "

"Of Violet," Amoretta said softly, looking down at the sculpture in her hands.

She frowned slightly.

This gift had been thoughtful and intentional: calculated to conjure up the ghost of the dead girl who never really left his side, calculated to injure, calculated to hurt her husband as seriously as could be managed. It was a gift that had been sent with a private, poisonous animosity: venom mixed into honey.

It was a toxic gift, and it made one thing very clear to her in a way that it had not been clear before.

Grabiner was not the only person who lived in close quarters with the specter of Violet's death.

* * *

Downstairs in the laboratory, Grabiner sat silently at the battered, nicked worktable with the drapes drawn and thought over the events of the spring. On the table before him lay his grimoire, a witness to all the strange and uncanny events that had made up the extraordinarily unlikely second term of an otherwise unremarkable school year.

He closed his eyes briefly. So many things had happened, and so quickly, that he had been remiss in his duties. The spring semester had been such a cavalcade of alarming surprises that he had had very little time to gather his thoughts, and even less time to organize them. Of course, now he had a new responsibility in his life, one that had been unasked for, certainly, but had come to stand as his new focus.

One thing was undeniably true, although he had been loathe to admit it even to himself.

He was tired of being alone. Being alone was terrifying and exhausting and could only be endured by numbing oneself to the small pleasures and agonizing despairs of living.

Perhaps he might have spared himself a great deal of trouble and simply acquired a dog to mitigate the steady misery of his otherwise empty life, but he had not thought that far ahead, and so instead of a dog he had ended up - through a questionable accident of fate - with a very troubling wife who came tugging a host of complications behind her on a string like they might have been a nursery pull-toy.

But because he had acquired a new responsibility was not a reason to disregard his other commitments. If anything, he had to be more focused now than ever, because he had so much more to consider.

When he had sworn to marry Amoretta that chilly morning in the accounting room, still punch drunk from having lain unconscious on a stone floor for hours, it had seemed like the only possible choice, and a sensible, although  _intensely inconvenient_  course of action. Certainly he had put himself into less than desirable positions often enough before, attempting to leverage unwise students out of troubles of their own making - although admittedly, he had never gone so far as  _marriage_ -

But then, the vows had half been that woman's doing in the first place. He had simply agreed, because there was nothing else to do but agree, or see the girl killed, and he had already -

But that was beside the point.

Ultimately, between that moment and this one he could chart no other course than the one that had led them up and then tumbling down one difficult climb after another. He loved her, and that wasn't easy, although it was something he could do without thinking.

It was all quite ludicrous. Everything that had happened was absolutely ludicrous.

Which was how he came to be sitting in the private laboratory of Revane Cottage at the courtesy of his father. If all oaths were as binding as those sworn on magic, Grabiner thought he ought to have been struck dead, or turned entirely to stone by this point.

Of course he had done it because it had been the only thing to do at the time. They couldn't go on living at Iris Academy. The headmistress had made things too difficult for them. They needed their own space, and this space happened to be the only feasible alternative.

His life with Amoretta was a veritable catalogue of strange and unusual experiences, and although it would have been easy enough to write all the weird happenings off as vagaries of fate, Grabiner was at this point unwilling to take anything for granted.

Marianne Amoretta Suzerain was not at all the person she had first appeared to be. He had expected her to be a callow country bumpkin, and inevitably her freshness was part of her charm, but he had discovered over months of conversation that she was quite well-traveled for a sixteen year old girl, both in her own country and abroad. Far from having the deficient education he was always accusing her of, she had a breadth of knowledge that was very unusual in a child of her age. Her habit of making her silly little jokes made him sure that she had to be familiar with a library's worth of books, both classic and modern. As much as he complained about her, she was very easy to teach. She soaked up information like a sponge, and had a very intuitive way of understanding things.

She had, after all, constructed a new functional language of material circles herself, in her spare time, as a sort of  _hobby_ , as she put it.

_Found another prodigy?_  Madame Belle had purred, but then, she hadn't seen what he'd seen.

Two girls, separated by fourteen years of time.

Fourteen years. It was nothing, and it was everything.

Amoretta had won the national lottery, had been dealt a straight flush of royals out of a virgin deck of cards. She did not want to have her picture taken. She was afraid of being found out, although she could not say why or by whom. She was not really a wildseed, although she had been raised as one. Her father was a strange man who also seemed to know and understand things that he ought not to know. She had no mother. Amoretta herself had told him she had been torn from the thigh of Zeus, although naturally this was more of her silly prattle, something meant to amuse him and divert his attention rather than anything of actual substance.

On the corner of his desk lay the book that Logan Phifer had given to him on loan:  _the Nine Circles of Fire._

As the boy had prophesied, the book had followed him.

_Let's just say,_  the boy had said, _that it occurred to me that_ someone else _might have taken notice of Amoretta's remarkable luck._

Amoretta had a mark on her shoulder like a cattle brand, a wound that burned with misery and sorrow.

Not for anything in the world would he have ever made her carry such a thing, but she carried her burden without complaint, just as he carried his.

He opened his grimoire and took out a small packet that he carried in the back like a sheaf of papers. He laid it flat on the table and brushed his fingertips across it and the palm sized folio expanded in size until it might have held business correspondence, or a legal pad or two. Grabiner untied the folio and from it he took two file folders. There was nothing else in the folio, and so he pushed it away, out of his work area.

Of the two folders, one was decidedly thicker, filled with pages of closely written notes, strange documents, sworn affidavits, and all sorts of other unusual bits of information hastily scribbled in margins. The corners of this folder were worn as soft as silk from years of use.

The other folder was obviously newer, which accounted for its slimness, but he had already accumulated a reasonable amount of information for it. In this folder were the scores of card games, facsimiles of certain material circles, notes on possible genealogies, as well as the ubiquitous pages of closely written notes.

He had started this second folder with the intention that it should be the beginnings of his personal research into the nature of souls, his first attempts at finding his way through one of the Great Mysteries. When he had made the gimmal oath with Amoretta, he had known that as a defensive measure it was only a stopgap, although it was an  _extreme_ stopgap. If he could not find a way to make her ragged soul whole again, eventually she would cease to exist entirely, her self getting thinner and thinner until there was nothing left of her at all. Forty nine lifetimes might seem like a great deal of time, but Grabiner knew quite logically that a lifetime is not a set unit like an hour or a second. One's life might measure in minutes as easily as it might measure in years, and no one could say what the future held. If he was going to help her, then he could not afford to waste time. Perhaps in the future he might count on her help in researching the problem, but at the moment she was still a girl in school, no matter what he thought of her potential. For now it was his problem to consider: her soul, and how it might be mended.

But although this was the body of work that he had intended her folder to contain when he had started it, at this moment, it contained something entirely different.

That was because things were not as simple as he had taken them to be.

Before he could begin to tackle the possibly insoluble problem of repairing her soul, he needed to  _know who she was_.

Her soul: what was its nature?

And he couldn't simply ask her, because she apparently didn't know herself.

If she was what he thought she was -

_If she is, then she is,_  Grabiner reflected resignedly.  _I cannot change it._

But it made things even more confusing.

It made things even more complicated.

_That's why I had to be sure you were equipped to deal with her,_  her father had said.

He still wasn't sure that he was, but he had no choice.  _He had to be_.

But today was not a day for that. He had been worrying over it and trying to puzzle it out for months now, and he had neglected his other responsibilities.

He put Amoretta's folder back into the folio, and opened the second folder. He needed to reacquaint himself with his notes before he could continue his investigation.

"Kavus," he called briefly, without looking up.

The djinni appeared with a brief bow.

"See that I am not disturbed until suppertime," he said shortly.

"As you wish," the djinni replied, then asked, "Should I take this order to concern the mistress as well?"

"You should take it to  _particularly_ concern the mistress," Grabiner answered sharply.

The djinni bowed again.

"As you wish," he repeated, and then disappeared.

* * *

Amoretta was downstairs in the sitting room considering where she ought to put the wedding gifts she had so far unwrapped, with Cord behind her, his arms full of blankets and the Chinoiserie vase, when the bell announcing a visitor at the little clearing in the woods chimed.

Amoretta cast an apologetic look at Cord over her shoulder. "You can put them down for now, and we'll decide later," she said, then turned her attention to the spell variation Grabiner had taught her the evening previous.

"May I ask who's calling?" Amoretta asked the spell, expecting Petunia Potsdam to answer.

Instead it was another familiar voice that politely said, "It's Ellen Middleton."

"Oh Ellen," Amoretta clapped her hands with surprise and delight, "Hold on, I'll be right there."

"Shall I show her in?" Cord asked, but Amoretta shook her head as she grabbed his hand.

"We'll both show her in," she laughed, and then dragged him along on a short teleport hop without his consent.

All at once Amoretta remembered that she needed to give permission before Ellen could enter the small closed world, and she did so belatedly, as she stood before the door.

Ellen sensibly came through the door with her eyes closed, but then stood blinking in the warm light of the courtyard.

"It's very  _colorful_ ," she remarked after a moment of confusion.

"That's what I thought too," Amoretta agreed, then glanced over her shoulder at Cord, who was standing a pace behind, with his hands respectfully clasped behind his back. "Ellen, this is Cord," she said, waving him forward. "Cord, this is Ellen Middleton. We're at school together."

Ellen extended her hand, and she and Cord shook.

"Cord is - " Amoretta paused, and for a moment was completely stumped. "Well, he's my friend, for one thing," she said. "But how am I supposed to introduce you? Are you a footman, or a valet, or something? I really have no idea."

Cord smiled and shook his head. "In the past, I have been a valet, but here at Revane I am the butler," he corrected her. "That's the position for which Mr. Grabiner employs me, even if I don't have anyone to be in charge of."

"The butler, really? How impressive! Don't you think so, Ellen?" Amoretta cried out, and grabbing Ellen's arm and giving her a mild shake. Ellen murmured a vague agreement to satisfy her overzealous friend. "I've never known any butlers before. Do you suppose now my life will become like a P. G. Wodehouse novel?"

Cord laughed a little awkwardly. "Let's hope not, ma'am," he said.

"Don't be silly, Cord. Everyone likes hijinks and comic action," Amoretta said judiciously, and tugged on Ellen's arm again, although this time Ellen did not murmur in agreement, wisely realizing that comic action is more enjoyable to read about than to experience personally. "And you said it yourself: I'm just the sort of girl who would hide in a closet and have you bring her martinis while she spied on nefarious agents selling our country's secrets to the highest bidder."

"I don't think that's the plot to a Wodehouse novel," Ellen hazarded, and Amoretta laughed again.

"I'm pretty sure it's not," she agreed. "Anyway, how did you get here?" Amoretta wanted to know. "Did you walk or did someone drop you off?"

Ellen shook her head. "I borrowed a bicycle from the headmistress," she said. "It's spelled to a tree in the clearing," she nodded her head over her shoulder to indicate the door behind her. "I plan on buying one of my own with part of my student stipend in the fall, or maybe earlier, if I can save up enough over the summer." She smiled briefly. "The headmistress is letting me do odd jobs for her over the summer, so I can earn some spending money."

"That's wonderful!" Amoretta declared. "What sorts of things?" she wondered, then realized she was being rather remiss as a hostess, making Ellen stand by the entry door. "Come on and I'll show you around," she said, then admitted, "Although I'm still getting my bearings myself. We can talk as we walk."

Ellen agreed, and the two girls began circumnavigating the grounds. Cord excused himself part way through the garden, and Amoretta thanked him again for his help.

Ellen waited until he had gone before looking around herself slowly and saying, "I suppose this is how the other half lives."

Amoretta could only shrug as she walked along with her hands clasped behind her back. "I suppose it is, but I'm not really sure. When I was away at school before, I mean before I came to Iris Academy, I knew an awful lot of girls who would probably think this place was pretty plain and dull. Excepting all the magic, of course. I'm not saying _I_ think it is," she hastened to add, "I like it very much, and I'm sure it must have cost piles and piles of money, but earlier this year Logan Phifer just casually chatted with me about assassination attempts on  _his_ life, like they were the most normal thing in the world. I'm just saying it seems like most everything is relative. I mean, I know I'm better off than a lot of people, but I think it's like papa is always saying - We're not the Vanderbilts, you know?"

"I don't know," Ellen said seriously as she looked at the storybook cottage that stood on the picturesque seaside cliff. "I think you might be."

"What do you mean?" Amoretta asked curiously.

They had come around to the back terrace, and Ellen leaned thoughtfully against the balustrade.

"I was just thinking about Consuelo Vanderbilt. She married Charles Spencer-Churchill, you know, Winston Churchill's first cousin, and became the Duchess of Marlborough," she said seriously.

"Well," Amoretta laughed, "I didn't become a duchess, only a baroness. I suppose I should complain to the management." She let out a little sigh and then joined Ellen leaning against the railing. "I do know what you mean though. It's a lot more complicated than I thought it would be, being a grown up. I got a lot of wedding presents, you see, and I've got to write thank you letters for all of them, as  _Lady Halifax_."

"Well, I hope your marriage ends better than Consuelo's did," Ellen said pensively.

Amoretta leaned on Ellen like a sloth and said, "Well, I'm hoping that it doesn't end  _period_ , personally," she confided. There was no wood convenient to knock on, so Amoretta knocked on the stone balustrade instead, just for peace of mind.

"Where is he?" Ellen asked, with the 'he' implicitly being understood as Amoretta's absent professor husband.

"In his workshop, I think," Amoretta answered. "He said he'd be working today - who knows on what. Maybe he's thinking up exams for next year," she suggested with a giggle.

"Things have been all right?" Ellen worried.

"They've been all right," Amoretta attempted to reassure her. Although she felt Violet hovering in the periphery of her new life, that was something she couldn't tell Ellen, not yet. Ellen worried about things awfully, and there was always the chance that everything would work itself out in time. Probably she was just uneasy because there were so many new things for her to become accustomed to. She gave Ellen a cheerful smile and asked, "So how do you like my Manderly?"

Ellen frowned at that. "Are you sure you're all right?" she demanded, narrowing her eyes.

"Of course I am," Amoretta said with a wry laugh. "Only I'm not very sure I'll make a particularly convincing baroness, and the housekeeper probably wants to see me buried alive or eaten by ants or something."

"Oh, I see," Ellen said, nodding thoughtfully. "Why doesn't she like you?" she asked.

Amoretta threw her hands up, "I can't really say. Hieronymous seems to think the reason is 'just because.' He says that there was no possible way I could have had the heaps and heaps of superlatives that she was hoping for. The main reasons seem to be that I'm not English and I'm a wildseed. I'm sure the way I look also has something to do with it," she added weakly. "I think she's of the opinion that if Hieronymous was going to embarrass himself by marrying a schoolgirl, he ought to have picked a rich, beautiful, well-educated, accomplished,  _polished_  schoolgirl at the very least. Not me."

Ellen puffed out her cheeks in indignation. "The nerve!" she said hotly. "As if you weren't perfectly good enough for him." Then she frowned and said, "I can't say about the rich part, but you  _are_  well-educated, accomplished, and polished. You're also very charismatic and extremely pretty, in my opinion," she huffed. "Professor Grabiner is lucky to have you. I honestly can't think of a way to make you better than you are."

Amoretta flushed slightly. She didn't think she deserved all the praise that Ellen was so intent on heaping upon her, but she was touched by the thought. Her embarrassment led her to turn the subject slightly.

"Hold on a minute," she reminded with a laugh, "Not too long ago, you weren't that keen on this marriage either."

"If you're going to disapprove of it then you have to disapprove of it for the right reasons," Ellen said stiffly, "Like Professor Grabiner being a predator."

Amoretta covered her eyes with her hands and laughed helplessly. "I told you, he's not a predator."

"Well, of course I know that  _now_ ," Ellen sniffed. "But you've got to admit, the whole situation looked  _extremely_ suspicious to the outside observer."

"You were certainly busy observing us," Amoretta teased as Ellen flushed and looked away.

"I was only worried about you," she huffed.

"I know," Amoretta agreed and gave Ellen an unexpected hug, "And I'm really grateful for it. I'm happy that you care so much about me. I've never really had friends like that before," she admitted. "And I'm sorry I tease you about it, but I'm probably not going to stop because you're really cute when you get angry and make this face," Amoretta let go of Ellen and puffed out her own cheeks in frustration as she danced backwards on her toes.

"Amoretta Suzerain, I could throttle you!" Ellen shrieked and lunged after her hostess.

"It's Grabiner!" Amoretta reminded with a whoop as she took off running with Ellen in hot pursuit.

They had completed roughly two circuits of the back terrace when they were interrupted by Cord with a plate of sandwiches.

"I thought you might like some lunch, ma'am," he said seriously, with a barely concealed smile at the two of them.

Amoretta pushed her tousled hair out of her face with her fingers and flopped down in one of the terrace chairs quite out of breath.

"Thanks awfully, Cord," she said.

Ellen, red faced at having been caught chasing Amoretta around the terrace like they were a couple of schoolgirls (which they were), silently sat herself down in another of the chairs and stared hard at the stone pavement.

"And what shall you have to drink, ma'am?" he asked.

Amoretta looked sidelong at Ellen, but as it was clear that the other girl was not likely to make a suggestion, Amoretta said, "Milk, please. We're still growing, you know?" she added with a puckishly wrinkled nose.

After he had gone, Ellen let out a low moan and covered her face with her hands. "How embarrassing," she lamented in the way that teenaged girls do when they feel that the world has come to an end due to some relatively trivial experience.

"So he saw you behaving like yourself," Amoretta said with a shrug, taking a sandwich from the plate as she drew her feet up into the chair with her.

Ellen grumbled, rubbing her palms against her eyes. "You wouldn't understand," she said. "Nothing embarasses you."

"That's not true," Amoretta said, shaking her head as she took a bite of her sandwich. "Lots of things embarrass me  _horribly_. Like, did you know that Kavus has been watching me bathe since January - "

" _Amoretta_!" Ellen shrieked in distress, turning purple.

"Well, he has," Amoretta said with a shrug. "I suppose Hieronymous is worried I'll drown in the tub or something - "

"That's  _it_ ," she said, as if this revelation were the final straw. "I'm  _definitely_ going to call the police."

"On Kavus or Hieronymous?" Amoretta asked in amusement. "The headmistress said I oughtn't worry about it because there are all sorts of little bacteria watching you whenever you take a bath anyway. Isn't that a splendid thought?"

Ellen looked slightly green at the prospect, and Amoretta suspected her compulsion to clean was warring with her compulsion to be embarrassed. Suddenly she covered her cheeks with her hands again.

"Do you suppose he's watched me bathing too?" she wondered in distress.

"Kavus?" Amoretta asked. "I doubt it. He made it fairly clear to me that his interest was professional only, so you probably don't have anything to worry about."

Ellen was clearly relieved, and let out a sigh as she soberly leaned over to take a sandwich from the tray.

"I've only just realized," she said, looking at Amoretta's socked feet. "You haven't got any shoes on."

Amoretta leaned back thoughtfully in her chair and observed, "Someone told me it was the season for it."


	4. Three: Pull Me Down Hard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has explicit content.

Grabiner's insistence on privacy while he worked in his laboratory had planted a seed of worry in Amoretta's heart. It wasn't a great, all-consuming worry. Her heart wasn't stormy with a maelstrom of regret and acid rain. It was a small worry, innocuous and nearly invisible when she turned around to take stock of her nearly perfect life, which made it the most insidious sort of worry because it was ever-present. When she examined the worry logically, it seemed entirely inconsequential, something she really oughtn't bother worrying about - but that didn't keep it from worrying her.

Perhaps her worry was silly. Very possibly it was silly. Of course it was silly. What was she doing even worrying about it? It made her feel low and needy and ungrateful, and above all  _silly_  - and not the nice sort of silly. It made her feel the worst sort of silly, the childish sort of silly that can't be trusted with any sort of responsibility, the sort of silly that causes nothing but trouble and headaches.

Her worry certainly seemed silly enough to her when she sat and thought about it, but dismissing it as silly and meaningless didn't keep her from feeling it, sometimes acutely.

She worried about the distance that had unexpectedly grown up between them.

Of course it was silly. Every night they slept together in the same bed, bound together by a ribbon. He couldn't have escaped her if he tried. Every meal they ate, they ate together. They passed every picturesque day together in the pretty little cottage with the blue door. The sun was always shining and the birds were always singing, and the flowers in the garden were always in full bloom.

Grabiner had moved them to Revane so that they would have time to be together, so that they would have the privacy they needed to do all of the things that they wanted to do.

And so it seemed silly to think that their intimacy had somehow been drawn thinner since coming to the fine little house.

But somehow, she worried that it had.

At the school, they had always been underneath one another's feet. Living in the close quarters of Grabiner's one room had forced them to become accustomed to one another very quickly. He sat at his desk and made notes while she read. She studied while he sat in his old, battered Morris chair and marked over assignments. She sat on the floor drying her hair while he watched on thoughtfully, an open book in his lap. They had had a weird camaraderie, like little children run away from home. It was all makeshift and make-do, but it was always close, it was always very safe and warm. It had become comfortable. At Iris Academy the only place they had had to retreat from the world outside had been his rooms, and they had often retreated there together. Solitude had not really been an option.

It was difficult to complain. Revane was a very nice house and Grabiner had put her in charge of it. She was his wife and the mistress of the house. He was ready to recognize her as such in front of anyone. It was impressive, that official recognition, and made things feel wonderfully permanent. But at the same time, she couldn't help but wish that things might have remained simpler, that she might have always been a first year student, fetching his slippers on cold mornings, and snuggling against him in the big old bed every night.

Things were changing, and she hadn't got her feet yet.

He was busy in his workshop. When she asked him what he was doing, he said only 'Conducting inquiries.' When she asked if she could come into the workshop while he was working just to observe, he denied her entry.

"I'm summoning," he said shortly. "The work is too dangerous for me to admit an unnecessary audience."

And he would not be moved despite her cajoling.

"Perhaps in the future," he relented, "But not as yet. You aren't ready. You would be an unwelcome distraction. I need all my wits about me for my work. I'm behind. I haven't made much progress since the autumn, given - "

He did not really need to tell her why he had been distracted from his independent research during the spring term. She felt guilty about monopolizing his time, while at the same time wanting to monopolize it. These were the uneasy feelings she had first admitted to him some time ago. She wanted to be with him. She knew it was too much to ask, but -

She swallowed her worries.

He stayed locked in his workshop the second day, and the third day, and the fourth day, not even emerging for lunch. Amoretta kept herself as busy as she could, inventing occupations for herself. She wrote thank you letters. She read in her little study. She walked around in the gardens, or followed the little path down to the sea shore. She arranged and rearranged furniture. She talked to the chimerical cardinal, whom she had decided to call 'Captain.' Cord told her he was more likely to become permanent if she took the time to name him. As far as she could tell, his courtship of the lady cardinal had not yet been successful. She could sympathize with him.

She was not really certain she could call her own courtship entirely successful either. Since coming to Revane she had really only seen Grabiner in the mornings and the evenings. He was pleasant enough, kind in his way, thoughtful, but distracted. Despite his formal declaration to disregard the laws of the state of Vermont, he had made no advances on her since coming to the cottage, which was very disappointing. He obliged in kissing her when she asked, and sometimes remembered to kiss her himself, but otherwise he seemed to be standing off, a little uncertain, a little troubled.

And this worried Amoretta.

She was willing to be patient -

But sometimes she felt very impatient. This impatience caused her to squirm in her chair sometimes when he had locked himself up in his workshop. She was afraid of moving forward by herself, afraid of trying to force the issue or press a point. He had been hurt badly in the past, and she thought it was respectful of his feelings to give him the space he required. She had long ago accepted that being with him would require her to plumb the depths of her patience. Everything would have to be slow and careful.

He was very cautious.

But she was getting very frustrated, and when she swallowed her frustrations and her worries, she ended up feeling sick and uncertain.

It wasn't very nourishing to her heart.

She was really unsure what she ought to do about  _everything_. There were times when he seemed strangely far away from her.

She wondered where he had gone when he got that distant look in his eyes. He seemed like he was turning something over in his mind, turning it over and over, very carefully.

Sitting with her head bent over a puzzle at the games table in the sitting room, slowly separating the pieces by color, she thought of the porcelain violets that had been hastily stowed in the corner of her little study.

She bit her lip.

It was difficult.

It was difficult because there were so many things she did not understand.

By this point, Amoretta had gathered that she did not really have an accurate or complete understanding of Grabiner's past. That discovery had come unexpectedly in the bookbinder's shop, when she had come to understand abruptly that she was Hieronymous Grabiner's second wife. The revelation had come like a slap across the face because it had been so startling, like falling through the ice into cold mud.

She couldn't really say why her stomach had seized up when this singular truth was revealed to her offhand, because it wasn't really as if she was  _jealous_ \- She had honestly meant what she had told him in the lonely dungeon chamber as he recovered from the effects of Infamy Cradle: he had every right to love the girl who had died. That he still loved her did not mean he could not also love Amoretta. And it was not only her convenient identity as a  _dead_ girlfriend that allowed Amoretta to be so magnanimous. She did not really think she would have minded if this girl, the one Petunia Potsdam had called  _the Peerless_ , and whom Grabiner had identified with the strangled, needy moan of  _Violet_ , had yet lived, and still occupied a portion of Grabiner's time and thoughts.

After all, Amoretta loved quite a lot of people, and Grabiner never indicated that she oughtn't. In fact, he seemed very tolerant of all her comings and goings, and was content so long as she appeared to be happy. She had the strong suspicion that he would only intervene in her affairs if he worried she was likely to endanger herself.

And it was no use thinking that it was only all right because Grabiner loved the girl called Violet  _differently_ than he loved Amoretta, because that was as plain as the color of the sky on a clear day. Amoretta and Violet were different people, so of course he loved them both differently, just as she loved everyone she knew differently. She did not think she had it in her to demand for any one person to stop loving any other person, whatever the reason might be. It did not  _hurt_ her, that he loved this other girl, that he had loved her, and that he obviously still loved her, and so therefore she could not object to it. It was an honest and naked facet of his character, and so she accepted it, as she habitually accepted every wisp of the person who was so gradually and haltingly revealed to her.

She wanted to occupy Grabiner's time - to monopolize it, if possible - but only if he were  _willing_. If he really wanted to spend his time elsewhere, then that was all right with her. She would not push him.

Her heart was both needy and reluctant at the same time. She wanted him to love her the way the green things loved the sun, as a part of the way he survived from day to day, an intrinsic element of his being, and she wanted to love him the way the tides loved the moon, willing to reshape the face of the earth to follow him.

But she could not  _make_ him love her in this way, and she did not think she ought to follow him if he did not want to be followed.

It was all very difficult.

It was all very difficult because he kept the girl called Violet and his own ragged past locked away from her, like a dragon sleeping on a hoard of gold, or a dog in a manger. It was his pain, and he was unwilling to share it with her, and because he was unwilling to share it with her, she could not begin to understand it.

When Marguerite Belle had so candidly identified Amoretta as Grabiner's second wife, the reason she had been so shocked and disoriented was not because she she had felt downgraded to some imagined second-best position in Grabiner's heart. It was not that simple. The reason she had felt so betrayed was because it had revealed how little Grabiner had been willing to share with her about his past. As a result, she had been slammed with an unexpected truth from a casual acquaintance in common conversation.

She had had to smile, and cover her distress and embarrassment as best she could, because she'd already caused one scene that day, and she did not feel confident enough to charge recklessly into another. She had hurt him badly once already due to her carelessness. She would not make him feel harried over something else so soon after they had made up.

Besides, it wasn't something that ought to be said in front of other people. It was private and precious, not something to be ogled by passing crowds, or be whispered about when heads were turned. Other people were allowed to hear them loudly argue about ideologies, about the difficult way of the world, but Amoretta was unwilling to show the outside world their intimate quarrels, their conversations of self. Those were the pearls of her heart.

She had also shielded her discomfort reflexively, a habit she had developed in the months since their marriage her become public: she felt she could never outwardly show her distress, for fear people would take it for kindling to publicly light their unlikely match on fire. Grabiner had said it himself, she would have to be prepared to accept a fair amount of incredulity, even if she didn't have to face direct opposition. She refused to consciously give away her uncertainty, for fear that her marriage would come under assault like the walls of Troy.

But it had hurt, the knowledge that he was unwilling to share that part of himself with her, that strangers seemed to know more about their situation than she did.

Of course, she had brought that upon herself.

Petunia Potsdam had tried to explain things to her, but she had begged off, sure that she was patient enough to wait until Grabiner was ready to loosen the chains on his secret heart himself.

And so, the headmistress had told her 'only what was strictly necessary.'

It was Amoretta's conceit that she had taken it for granted that she already knew most of what there was to know. The truth was, she hadn't even known Violet's name until Grabiner had revealed it to her accidentally, half-conscious and hallucinating.

The truth was, she really didn't know much of anything at all.

She wanted to know, and yet at the same time she was terrified of knowing.

It wasn't as if she feared she had married Bluebeard, and that he was simply biding his time and waiting for her to make a grisly discovery related to his past so that he had some justification for dismembering her and storing her in the basement between a box of christmas ornaments and an old recliner.

That might have suited Raven Darkstar just fine, but Amoretta's fear of knowing was not a material fear, it was an  _immaterial_ fear.

Or rather, it was a perfectly material fear that had absolutely nothing to do with  _her_.

It had to do with  _him_.

She feared that if she dug into the past like a curious raccoon, that he would come to hate her for nosing into secrets that he was not ready to share. His past had left him deeply scarred, and he had been nothing but honest about his own opinions: he would never be a good husband. He had too much to carry already, too many old wounds covered with tough, dry skin. He was weak and cowardly, a poor source of comfort with a terrible temper. He was fiercely private.

She had loved him in spite of all warnings, in spite of the bleak futures he had once been fond of predicting.

She did not want him to be different than he was. She loved a man who was perfect in his imperfections, beautiful because of his sorrows, fierce and impassioned but kind when he might have been cruel.

But she wished ardently that he would trust her.

He was unwilling. He carried his pain on his own back, and would not share the burden with her. He insisted on helping her to bear her own burdens, as if that were his divine right, but he would not share that defining weight - his original sin - as if it were too precious for her grimy little fingers to touch.

When he did reveal some strange morsel of his past with the girl called Violet, it was always an accident, as if it were sacrilege for the girl's name to pass his lips.

Amoretta wanted to know her, the girl called Violet, the girl who had named herself the Peerless, she wanted to understand her. If she came to understand her, then she would surely love her, and then that would be a thing they shared, rather than a thing that he hid away in the dark.

But he never spoke of Violet, and she was not sure she had the right to ask.

She had resolved to be patient, but she had discovered that being patient was more difficult than she had imagined. It made her feel weak when she meant to be strong.

She was terrified of driving him away.

She had expressed her fears very vaguely to Ellen, unwilling to reveal his secrets to another, but yearning for some sort of advice, even if it was only a pat on the head and an assurance that she ought to persevere.

Of course, a calm assurance and a pat on the head were not what she got from Ellen Middleton.

"Why don't you just look it up?" she asked frankly. "About his family, about his life. It seems like it's all a matter of public record."

Amoretta thought back to the copy of _Which Witch is Which_  that still sat helpfully on the little shelf in her study. She had not been willing to consult the entries on either Grabiner or his father, for fear that he would take it as uninvited prying into his past. She wouldn't ask Tansy either, although the fact that she had been with his family from her birth meant that she clearly might have been able to shed some light on the situation. Cord also seemed to know more than she did. It was like the little Breton cottage was filled with incendiary bombs disguised as confections, tempting little cakes tagged 'eat me,' which would destroy her marriage most explosively if consumed.

"I don't think he wants me to," Amoretta had answered haltingly. "I don't want to upset him - "

"Amoretta, he's your husband, isn't he?" Ellen had asked in exasperation. "Who cares if he doesn't want you to know about it? You have the right to know about it."

"But what if he's keeping it from me for a reason - " Amoretta interrupted, wringing her hands. She could construct a hundred thousand scenarios where this might possibly be an explicable truth, and as she had been consumed with worry, this is what her fertile brain did with itself. He might carry a curse from a fairy. Maybe he was trying to keep her from being turned to salt. Maybe there really were a dozen headless wives piled up in the basement -

"Even if he has a reason, it probably doesn't make any sense, except to him," Ellen denied vehemently. "Maybe it doesn't even make sense to him, and he's just doing it because it's habit. But none of that matters, you understand that, don't you? You have a right to know. This is your life too. You can't get anywhere on secrets. You can't get anywhere by not talking about things. If random people who read newspapers have a right to know about him, then you obviously do, since you  _married_ him."

"But I don't want a story from a newspaper," Amoretta denied, shaking her head. "I want his own story, the one he tells me, when he's ready to tell me."

"What if he's never ready to tell you, Amoretta?" Ellen demanded.

"I'm sure he's - "

"Does he strike you as someone particularly keen on opening up old wounds?" Ellen asked, and Amoretta dropped her eyes to the stone of the terrace.

"No," Amoretta admitted very lowly, but she clung tenaciously onto her fears. "But I just can't help but think, well, it's like he's asked me to trust him, and if I go digging around, I'm going to violate that trust. It's like Cupid and Psyche. He takes her away and gives her everything her heart desires, and the only thing he asks for in return is that she respect his privacy. Cupid tells her that she mustn't ever look at him, but she becomes consumed by the worry that he's secretly a monster and so she does, and he knows he can't trust her, so he leaves her. I don't want to be Psyche. I don't want to make her mistakes and drive him away - "

"Did she really drive him away?" Ellen wanted to know. "It seems to me that in the beginning, what Cupid and Psyche had wasn't really a partnership. Sure, he gave her things and expected obedience in return, but he didn't really trust her in the first place, or he would have shown himself to her, so she would have known she had married a god and not an awful monster. All she wanted to do was  _look at him_. You only test someone's faith if you have reason not to trust them, and she had done nothing except accept him as a suitor. In the end, all the trials Psyche goes through are what allow Cupid to relate to her as an equal, rather than as some sort of pet. That trial by fire is what really  _creates_ their marriage as a union of equals. It's what allows them to be together happily as one of the most celebrated marriages of the classical world. It's what gives Psyche her godhood. You say you're afraid of driving him away, but maybe what you're really afraid of is  _actually beginning_. You're in a comfortable place now, and so you're building up a terror of ever leaving that comfortable place. You're going to have to venture into uncertainty eventually, you know," Ellen said awkwardly, and then her own eyes dropped to the ground as a flush built up in her cheeks. "If you're afraid of moving forward, then the place where you are now is the place where you're going to die."

They were both silent for a while, staring at the ground.

At last Ellen said, "There really isn't any such thing as the curse of feminine curiosity, you know. Whether it's an apple in Eden, or a pillar of salt, or a bloody key, that's all just misdirection. They're all stories told for a specific purpose, myths created to hold people in check. They're an attempt by those in positions of power to hold onto that power by controlling information. If people are afraid of knowledge, then it's harder for them to become empowered by it. There's no knowledge that's bad knowledge. It's just people trying to understand things. Sometimes it's a gift of fire, and it hurts, but moving forward hurts. It's the only way to get to some place better. Ignorance isn't bliss, it's misery."

And that was all she had to say about it.

* * *

Amoretta was still quietly sitting at the games table, sorting through puzzle pieces, looking for straight edges so she could construct a frame, when she felt someone sit down on the bench beside her and turned to find Grabiner with his back to the table and his elbows braced against the pieces scattered over its surface. He looked pensive, thoughtful, unsure exactly of what he ought to say, and when his eyes fell on her, they were heavy.

But then he gave her a smile, one of his brief, private smiles, and said, "I've been neglecting you."

A pale flush rose in her cheeks, because in the time since they had come to Revane Cottage she had lost whatever mild immunity she had developed in resistance to his steady attention. She felt as if they were sitting together in the accounting room again, and he was giving her his very sardonic appraisal of the political process.

"Shouldn't you be working?" she asked shyly, her fingers fidgeting nervously over the puzzle pieces.

He glanced sidelong at the table briefly, took note of the idle, nervous movements of her hands, and then answered, "I have been working. I'm sorry," he looked away, as if the nearby footstool was infinitely easier to look at than her face. "I didn't bring you here to hide you away. I certainly didn't bring you here to avoid you. I've just been - " he broke off and shook his head. "I've had a lot to consider."

"Well, you are awfully busy," she admitted. "I mean, I understand that you have important things to do - "

He cut her off with a wave of his hand, "No need to make excuses for me," he said dryly. "I suppose I've just been a little crazy these past few days," he admitted, turning his eyes toward the ceiling. "I'm sure you had no idea what to make of it. You're right. I do have a great deal of work to do, but I've got to balance it all, somehow. I can't leave you alone in an empty house while I chase down phantoms," he finished vaguely, and Amoretta was unsure what he was talking about. "I brought you here," he said. "This is our house, and this is my holiday as much as it is yours." He was still studying the ceiling. "What I'm asking, Mrs. Grabiner, is if you'd like to spend the day with me."

Quite unexpectedly, she flopped sideways into his lap so that he had to scramble to catch her. She stretched her slender arms above her head.

"I'd like that more than anything," she admitted as she lay in his lap like an oversized cat.

"Good," he said evenly, recovering from the surprise of her enthusiastic response, as he reached down to muss her curly hair. "Then we are in complete agreement."

She shrieked and giggled in response, fighting him in an attempt to push the hair out of her eyes.

"But what are we going to do?" she asked, flushed and breathless as he pulled her upright on the seat again.

"As to that," Grabiner said, "I have some ideas." Then he tapped her lightly on the nose, "But first, braid your hair."

* * *

Although Amoretta's heart had been sent madly fluttering by the promise of his proposal, the place he took her when he led her by the hand, his warm fingers tangled in hers, was the back door broom cupboard.

"Close your eyes," he commanded.

"Hieronymous, " she protested, "I hope you're not planning on shoving me in there when my eyes are closed."

That won her a brief but sly smile. "I ought to, you little monster," he said. "But no. That is not my intention. Now close your eyes, you awful little thing, or I'll put a bag over your head."

"Since you've asked so nicely," Amoretta answered, sticking her tongue out. She did, however, close her eye and stood by patiently.

A moment passed, and then another, and she could hear Grabiner rummaging around in the tall cupboard.

At last, he said, "Hold out your hands. Both of them."

She held out her hands obediently and was startled as she felt a surprising weight passed into them, like a pole, or a -

She opened her eyes before he had given her the all clear and was so astonished that her voice squeaked a little when she realized, "It's a broom!"

"Your powers of observation never fail to astonish me, darling," he said dryly. "Yes, it is a broom."

And what a broom it was! Nearly six feet long from tail to tip, with a bare wooden handle that had been sanded as smooth as silk to the touch. The tail was pretty golden broom corn bound with dark cord, and it had a large ribbon tied around the shaft where the stalks were woven together. A golden bell hung on a short chain from the middle of the ribbon, and the bell rang merrily when Amoretta shifted the stick slightly in her hands.

"That's so I don't lose track of you," Grabiner advised. "It wouldn't do to collar one's wife, so I thought a bell on the broomstick was a fair compromise."

"This is  _my_ broom?" Amoretta asked, still incredulous.

"Well, I didn't go and tie a ribbon around mine, if that's what you're thinking," he remarked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Oh Hieronymous, it's the most splendid broom I've ever seen!" Amoretta crowed in overwhelmed delight, throwing her arms around his neck enthusiastically. He narrowly escaped being bashed in the face with the broom's handle only by catching it with one hand, and catching her around the waist with the other.

"How does it work? What do I do? Does it work indoors? How is it powered? Can it fly all by itself?" Amoretta fired a rapid stream of questions at him as she hung off his neck.

He lightly settled her on the floor again, putting both hands steadyingly on her shoulders.

"Hang on a minute, Charles Lindbergh," he said. "You aren't quite ready to take to the wild blue yonder just yet. Let's at least take the proper precautions, like going  _outside_ , for one."

From the depths of the broom closet he produced a floppy, rumpled hat, which he pressed down on her head, advising her to tie it under the chin. He found another hat in the back of the closet which he proceeded to shove on his own head, leaving his own familiar grey hat on a side table. Then he opened the door to the back terrace and fairly pushed her out of it.

Having a hat unceremoniously thrust upon her head left Amoretta with a need to get situated. Grabiner had pressed the hat down right over her glasses, so she was obliged to take the whole rig off, seat the glasses on her nose, and then tie the hat back in place. By the time she had finished she found Grabiner had joined her on the terrace, a shabby looking broom in his own hands and the awful squashed hat on his head.

She could not help but laugh.

"You do look silly," she confessed, but Grabiner only shrugged.

"We aren't out to impress high society," he said. "Besides, you look like an absolute terror in that hat, so you've got no room to talk."

"You're the one who picked it out," she protested, laughing as she protectively covered it with her hands, as if to shield it from his criticisms.

"Well, I obviously have terrible taste," he agreed, waving her off, as if horrified.

"I'm going to go get the sunglasses from the jeep," she threatened, "And then we'll see who looks worse!"

"You do that and I'll leave you on the rooftop," he answered, returning her threat as he gestured her nearer to him. "Now leave your precious new broom here. That's right, just lay it across the chairs. Don't worry, Little Orphan Annie, no one's going to make off with it." He nodded his head toward his own broom. "The first time you go up, you ought to go up with me, just to get accustomed to it. I don't need you panicking the first time you get four meters off the ground."

He pulled a pair of leather gloves from his trouser pocket and tossed them toward her.

"You'll have to make do with these until your own arrive," he said. "I know there's no way in blazes that they'll even remotely fit, but just put them on and we'll see what we can do."

The gloves he had thrown at her were a pair of his own, worn smooth through the palms and fingertips. Of course, she was swimming in them, like a little girl playing dress up. He paused to regard her with one eyebrow raised, the long fingers of the gloves dangling comically from her small hands. He had only managed to put on one of his own gloves before being distracted by her admittedly ridiculous circumstances.

"I do have some gloves upstairs," she said, tilting her head to the side. "I could go get those."

He shook his head. "No good," he said. "They're synthetic. You won't get the proper feel of the broom. A good riding glove is always leather." He considered her hands as he approached her, his wand drawn. "Fingers all in their proper places?" he wondered. It was somewhat difficult to tell.

She nodded.

"Well then," he said, "We'll try this. It won't be perfect, but hopefully it'll hold through the day."

She held her hands out for him dutifully, and he made several adjustments to the gloves using blue and black magic spells, finally sealing them in place when she told him that she thought they fit well enough.

Her hands fitted with gloves, Grabiner moved back to take a hold of the broom he'd leaned against one of the terrace chairs and got himself settled on it. Amoretta clapped her hands in front of her as inscribed runes along the handle lit up with the gleam of spell text, and Grabiner kicked lightly off the ground. He hung there, one booted foot anchoring him to the ground, the other already in the air, and held out his hand toward her.

"Let's have you then," he called, and she came as he wanted.

She was standing there, her gloved hands folded under her chin, trying to decide how one went about getting onto a broom that was already in the air, when Grabiner unceremoniously captured her around the waist and pulled her onto the broom in front of him.

"It's not going to bite you," he scoffed.

"It's not the broom I'm worried about," she retorted, sticking out her tongue.

"I have half a mind to bite you right now," he warned, but then turned his attention to properly seating her on the broom. "One leg on either side. You grip it with your thighs. Hands on the shaft. You want your grip to be comfortable, but not too tight, or you'll lose all the nuance."

"It's a lot more comfortable than I had imagined," she confessed, the roses blossoming in her cheeks.

"That would be because you're sitting square in my lap," Grabiner answered dryly. "But yes, this is a broom made for flying. If they weren't comfortable to sit for hours at a time, then I can't imagine anyone would use them."

"Do many people use them?" she wondered. "I don't think I've seen anyone at school with one."

"They aren't so popular here as they are at home," he agreed. "I suppose they're a bit like bicycles, but you can't go flying about the village without a glamor on, usually a pigeon or something similar. Most witches here get around by car, as do most mundanes," he leaned forward, over the broom, and he naturally guided her posture forward, putting a hand briefly on her stomach to pull her snug against him before taking hold of the broomstick again. "Not afraid of heights, I hope," he murmured in her ear with grim amusement.

Amoretta didn't have a chance to answer him because before she could open her mouth they were off the ground, up like an arrow into the sky above the terrace, and then over the edge of the cliff and down toward the surface of the make-believe sea. They skimmed so low over the water that Grabiner's boots might have gotten wet had he dropped his feet and dragged them.

Far from upsetting his small wife, their high speed descent had caused her to whoop with delight, and as he circled around the cliff and gained altitude again, rising so that they hung above the roof to the little cottage, he leaned back slightly, his hand on the broomstick sliding back to bring the broom to a sedate and peaceable creep.

"I might have known that you'd enjoy this sort of thing," he said as she sat up on the broom herself and leaned back against him.

"Are you disappointed?" she wanted to know.

He shook his head briefly. "No," he said. "Just unsurprised."

"Well, if I was shocked by a silly thing like flying off a cliff, I don't think I'd ever have managed being successfully married to you," she chirped, sounding a bit self-satisfied.

He gave her long braid a light tweak with his free hand.

"My dear," he said very dryly, "You are a caution."

"Yes," Amoretta admitted cheerily, "I certainly am."

"Would you like to try handling it for a bit?" he asked. "It'll get you accustomed to the way it moves before you have to be concerned with regulating the speed."

She nodded in excitement, the roses blooming in her cheeks again. The speed of their descent had blown her hat all crooked, but it still hung gamely on. She presented a very compelling picture and he very much wanted to kiss her, right then, at that moment.

But.

He was trying to teach her how to handle a broom.

"Hands evenly on the shaft. The dominant one higher, that's it," he said, correcting her grip with his own free hand. "You want a comfortable grip, loose, but not so loose that you don't have a hold on the broom. Now I'm going to stop guiding the broom, so it'll respond to you when you direct it."

She nodded seriously, her cheeks still madly flushed, and he knew then that she was concentrating hard, so he gradually let his control of the broom's orientation fade.

As soon as he had relaxed his control of the broom, they were spinning rapidly around in place, as if they'd just hit a patch of black ice on a mountain highway.

"What the devil - " Grabiner complained loudly, swearing as he struggled to get the broom under control again. Once their spinning slowed, he stated, "Well, that was a less than spectacular debut performance, Mrs. Grabiner. What in heaven's name did you think you were doing?"

"I was testing the yaw rate," she answered pertly. "Let go of it, Hieronymous. I was having a good time!" she complained.

"If you keep 'testing the yaw rate' then you're going to send us spinning right into the ground," he answered crisply, but she was already shaking her head in denial.

"Only if I turn the broom on its tail," she disagreed, "Besides, you're controlling the acceleration. We're not going to do anything but spin in place, which is why I gave it a good nudge."

"Well, I'd appreciate it in the future if you gave me some warning before you send us spinning like a top," he said brusquely.

"Well, here's your fair warning," she said amiably. "I'm going to send us spinning like a top again, only this time we're really going to be tumbling." She made a quick motion with one of her hands to simulate their projected movement. "That is to say, turning around an axis orthogonal to our previous axis of rotation."

"Amoretta," he growled, "Is that strictly necessary? We're not in the teacups at Disneyland. I brought you up here so you could learn to fly, not induce me to vomit."

"Have an unexpected weakness to sudden changes in the angle of rotation?" she teased with a puckish smile, wrinkling her nose so her glasses wiggled up and down slightly. "It really oughtn't be too bad, since we're sitting in place. There isn't that much inertia behind it, but if you really will be sick, then we can always land and you can let me go up on my own. After all, I can't get the feel for it if you won't let me."

Grabiner sighed very dramatically and said, "All right, you little monster. You can have your way, for now, at least. You probably don't have the stamina yet for a sustained flight. We'll have to build it up over time. That broom wasn't simply a fine present from a thoughtful and devoted husband," he explained dryly. "It's meant to help with your rehabilitation. Don't expect to be able to go up like this on your own for a while yet."

"So you'll let me have control of the stick?" Amoretta asked with the excitement of a small girl on Christmas morning.

"Against my better judgement," Grabiner grunted. "Just try not to send us cartwheeling into the cliffside or something, will you?"

He had relaxed his control over the broom as he was speaking, and he had barely finished before Amoretta had them tumbling end over end. He held his tongue and kept his lunch with some difficulty. Although they tumbled rabidly for several seconds, at the end of it they gradually slowed to a stop, and he found that they were thankfully right-side-up.

"It's really very responsive," she noted, looking down at the stick in her hands. "I suppose it looks a little old and beaten up, but it seems to perform like a champ. The pitch is a little stickier than the yaw. You have to lean on it harder to get the same amount of torque."

"I take exception to you calling my broom 'old and beaten up'," Grabiner said, adopting his familiar lecturing tone. "I've had this broom for years and years, which is exactly why it's so responsive. Brooms have a sort of elastic memory. The longer you imprint them with the habits of your own personal use, the more they remember and the better they preform. That broom you got was tuned for a new rider, so don't expect it to respond like this until you've had lots of time to get it accustomed to you. The pitch is stickier than the yaw on this broom because that's the way I like it. This broom is acclimated to me."

"Well, that makes me feel like I've put on your pajamas," she volunteered candidly, and he snorted.

"Not quite," he said, "Although you do have the right idea. Brooms are very personal. I wouldn't let you on mine except in an emergency situation unless I was  _reasonably_ fond of you." His upper arms tightened around her shoulders slightly. It was the sort of easy embrace that sitting a broom permitted.

"Well, I hope you don't take your casual acquaintances up like this," she laughed, squirming in place against his lap to illustrate her point.

"Stop that wiggling at once!" he thundered, because the broom had begun to shimmy in place from her squirming.

"Stop it or what?" she baited with an impish smile.

"Stop it or  _you'll find out_ ," he threatened darkly, and she laughed.

"That's just what I've been hoping for, though," she reminded him. " _To find out._ "

* * *

They spent some time up on the broom, and Grabiner exercised his patience while she rolled them and pitched them and yawed them until she was satisfied. He found her control of the broom got more and more precise the longer he let her play with it, although that didn't really surprise him either. It was the sort of thing she would be good at, he thought.

At last, she seemed to be getting tired, and turned the controls over to him again, leaning back against him comfortably as she did so.

"All right," she said contentedly, "You take over, teach, but don't set us down just yet. It feels good, to be up like this. Let me enjoy it for a while?" she asked hopefully.

"I will," he said deliberately, "Although I'm going to pointedly ignore the fact that you just called me 'teach.'"

"A term of endearment," she assured as she relaxed against him. "I don't go around calling just  _anybody_ teach, only professors I'm married to," she explained.

"Well that changes it entirely," he said with a roll of his eyes (which was entirely lost on her, as she was sitting forward of him on the broom, and could only see him by craning her neck as hard as she could).

He obliged her wishes by continuing their leisurely broom ride. She enjoyed having a close up look at the cliff face, at the imaginary birds who were making their imaginary nests in the crevices, and when he took her low over the sea again she leaned over to dip her gloved fingers in the water, delighting as the drops of water balled up against the leather.

Then she let out an utterly pleased noise and stretched out her legs, wriggling her toes inside her shoes and enjoying the painful ache of pushing her muscles to their comfortable limit.

"Come on, Hieronymous. You don't have to be a grandma on my account," she teased. " _Gun it_."

As if tired of being goaded by his petite wife, Grabiner did just that: _he gunned it._  Although he hadn't spent any substantive time on a broom in years, physical muscle memory is long, and it was easy to lean into, easy to fall back into himself, into the boy who had once raced brooms across the bleak countryside of his childhood, trying to run away from himself, trying to outrun his own life.

She had no fear, only clung loosely to the broom in front of him, her body slung low. She laughed when he rolled them and the only time he felt her stiffen briefly was the first time they took a hard turn to the right and she braced herself as she was thrown against him. After that turn, she seemed to have faith that he would be there to lean against, and only braced herself a little. It was a lot of tight turns in the limited space of the demi-plane, but his control was good, and he had a strong understanding of the space around him. He pushed himself, he pushed the both of them, not dangerously, but enough to inspire a rise, a thrill of expectation, and then a rush of adrenaline. He worked out a great deal of stress and aggression in that ride, and when he at last brought them down to the ground, letting one booted foot slide to a stop in the loose stones at the edge of the terrace, he felt much better about everything.

She was a little disappointed that their ride had ended when he helped her off the broom, but her cheeks were still flushed from the excitement. She had obviously enjoyed herself.

"Take me up again?" she asked hopefully.

"Naturally," he agreed as he climbed off his broom. He turned his attention to her broom, which still lay expectantly across the terrace chairs. "Now," he said seriously, as he moved to lay his own broom across the table, "Let's see if we can't get you up on your own broom for the first time."

She leaned forward winsomely. "Will it hurt?" she asked worriedly.

Grabiner's brow knit together in confusion. "What do you mean 'will it hurt?' Did I bash your head against something while we were up - "

He turned around to look at her and found that she was lost in silent giggles, her hands over her mouth.

"Oh yes," he responded dryly. "Very funny. You are hilarious. Allow me to congratulate you for your incredibly comical joke. To answer your question, no it won't hurt, so long as you follow my instructions and remain at least vaguely sensible." He eyed her grimly. "I know that's a challenge for you, but please, do your best. I'm sure it  _will hurt_  if you send yourself hurtling into a wall on your first try."

"It isn't my first try," she reminded him, sticking out her tongue. "It's my second try."

"Well, I'm sure you're an expert by now," he agreed with a faint snort, and then offered her his hand to help her seat herself on her own broom.

He spent the next hour teaching her how to feed the broom her own magical energy, to call it up through the surroundings, and to channel it through herself. At the end of their lesson he was satisfied that she could navigate around the terrace, her feet a couple of inches above the ground. But he had been correct in his estimation. Even such a light strain tired her out soon enough, and when he called the lesson finished she was clearly happy to rest.

As he helped her off her broom and took charge of it, to stow it back in the cupboard along with his, he turned to look at her seriously, a finger directed sharply at her to underscore his point.

"Under no circumstances are you to consider going up on your broom without my supervision," he said, and it was as if new commandment had been delivered from the sky.

Amoretta held up two fingers and nodded, agreeing, "Scouts honor."

After he had put the brooms away, and they had both taken off their gloves and their awful hats, Grabiner turned to her and asked, "Ready to go in?"

She nodded.

He considered the sky above them thoughtfully. It was clear and blue, with the same pale, artistic clouds that Amoretta had noted on her first afternoon at Revane.

"Rain, I think," he said absently.

He motioned her into the back hallway after him and stood in the open door frame, looking out at the sea.

"Shift weather paradigm," he called out, after briefly tracing a few movements with his hand. "Rain." He looked back over his shoulder at her. "What sort of rain?" he asked her in a low voice, as if she might have some opinion.

"Will it hurt anything?" she wanted to know.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "It's all chimerical. Even a blustery storm isn't set to leave any after effects."

"Then torrential!" she chirped happily. "I love wild weather!"

His mouth turned up at the corner briefly, and a sidelong glance indicated that her revelation was unsurprising. Then turned his attention back to the sky outside.

"Rain," he repeated, then added his qualifier. "Torrential."

* * *

When it rained torrentially, it rained  _torrentially_. In the great room at Revane cottage, Amoretta sat backwards on a sofa, her chin pillowed on her arms, and watched the rain come down outside. Beside her, a book open on his lap, sat Grabiner, although he was really paying more attention to her than he was to the printed word.

"I don't know how you can watch that," he said dubiously. "It's just noise, really, a simulation of a storm. Watching it is like watching television static."

"Sometimes that's very soothing too," she admitted, and he shook his head as if he could not really understand her. As she considered the storm outside, she repeated him, "Just a simulation of a storm. Do you mean to tell me that if I went outside right now, I wouldn't really get wet?"

"You'd get wet," he disagreed. "You'd feel the rain. You'd get drenched, but it wouldn't be 'real' rain, not like the rain at Iris Academy, not like the rain of Vermont, not like the rain you grew up with. In fact, it would only be as real as you allowed it to be. If you came inside after being out in all of that, I could dry you off just by dispelling you. It's real, but it isn't real. Honestly, it simply gives the impression of being real. That's what ephemera are like."

"So that's chimerical rain," she murmured to herself, still captured by the wonder of it. Like everything else in the small, closed world, the raindrops were like none she'd ever seen before. They glimmered like mercury as they fell, and the puddles that had already formed in the front courtyard looked as if they might have moonbows hidden in their hearts. The force of the rain from the sky, as angry as thousands of glass needles falling from heaven, left the puddles thrumming with movement, as if there were hundreds of little fountains out among the flower beds.

"It is," he said idly. "It's entirely chimerical, but it's perfectly good enough for our purposes, at any rate." He affixed her with a critical eye. "And before you ask, I am not going out there into the rain. No matter how easy it may be to dry off, I am not an entirely deranged individual. I have no desire to cavort wildly in a thunderstorm like some sort of animal."

The smile that appeared on her face was small, but potent.

"I wasn't going to ask," she said airily, and then amended,  _"This time._  I'm perfectly content to just spend the evening in here with you. The rain is nice, but this time I'd rather not be in it."

Grabiner chuckled briefly. "How unusual for you to exhibit common sense," he noted.

"Most of the time I'm too busy exhibiting uncommon sense," she agreed, and at last left the window and turned around so they were facing one another. She sat with her knees tucked under herself and studied him thoughtfully.

On the games table behind her, the unfinished puzzle lay silent, but not forgotten.

Grabiner, who saw the uncertainty play briefly across her face, leaned forward slightly.

"Is something bothering you?" he asked seriously. "Are you in pain? Is it something I've done - "

"No, no!" she waved her hands wildly, losing her balance and falling forward slightly as she did. "Nothing's wrong, really. You haven't done anything but be wonderful today, and my shoulder doesn't hurt, honestly."

He had caught her with his palms as she had fallen forward, and as she insisted she was all right, he put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her so that she sat leaning against him.

"Are you absolutely certain?" he asked with some suspicion. "I told you that if you're troubled, you can come to me. Don't try and stubbornly wrestle through things on your own."

Amoretta smiled weakly as she shook her head. She really couldn't tell him. Not yet.

Perhaps soon, but not yet. He was obviously trying his best, and he recognized his shortcomings, such as they were.

She had an awful lot of shortcomings herself.

She let out a great sigh and said, "It isn't anything, really. I was just thinking about how happy I am to be here, with you. It's not something that I'd have ever really dreamed of, before, not when we first met, I mean."

His smile quirked up at the corner at that and he shook his head.

"Oh, I'm sure you  _dreamed_ of something similar, knowing you," he said.

"Well, aren't you an egotistical beast!" Amoretta laughed as she seized a small, round pillow from the sofa and hit him across the chest with it.

He let her beat on him ineffectually for a few moments before taking possession of the pillow himself and leaning his elbow on it, so she could no longer use it as a weapon.

"You did write me that awful letter," he pointed out.

"I did," she admitted, her cheeks flushing slightly as she laughed. "You know, I suppose the joke really is on me. Damien wanted me to write a romantic letter for him, and I didn't have the slightest idea of what to write, so I asked Ellen, and she gave me some suggestions. There was really only one person I was thinking about when I wrote that letter, and he's the person who ended up getting it, even though I didn't intend on him ever seeing it."

"In that case," Grabiner disagreed with narrowed eyes, "I believe the joke may be on Mr. Ramsey."

Amoretta sensed the dangerous current in their conversation that had emerged when she had mentioned Damien's name and struggled to distract him from either brooding or seething over it.

"Do you still have the letter?" Amoretta asked curiously as she looked up at him.

She was rewarded with the faintest flush of his cheeks.

_He did._

"You kept it!" she laughed delightedly and Grabiner frowned slightly.

"Yes, I kept it," he said tersely, obviously embarrassed at having been found out. "Why shouldn't I have kept it? You  _are_ my wife," he pointed out.

"But I wasn't then," she teased, wriggling in place beside him with her delight.

"Well, it was the most bizarre letter I've ever received," he said defensively, leaning further over on his elbow, as if to escape her close scrutiny. "It was written by a person who was most certainly wildly insane. I kept it in case I ever had need of it as evidence in a trial to determine a certain individual's soundness of mind."

"You kept it because it was from  _me_ ," she pressed, leaning against him even as he attempted to escape.

"Damn it all, Amoretta, of course I kept it because it was from you!" he groused as he leaped to his feet in discomfort, throwing up his hands in disgust as his book was dumped unceremoniously on the floor.

She was as gleeful as a kitten playing in wrapping paper as she rolled around on the recently vacated sofa, giggling.

Seeing her  _obvious and supreme delight_ , he found he could not stay angry at her for having found him out. He picked up his book and left it on the end table. Then he sighed as he moved to sit across the room from her, on the piano bench.

"Have you ever kept anyone else's letters?" she wanted to know, still rolling around in feline exultation.

"I - " he looked away from her and studied the plaster of the wall. "No, I haven't," he finished shortly.

Amoretta caught it, that brief tell, and sat up.

_There's more to this too, then_ , she realized, her face slightly flushed. She wasn't sure if it was Violet in the room with them then, or someone else entirely. He looked a little tired.

She got up and moved to sit on the floor next to the piano bench.

"I'm sorry for putting you on the spot," she apologized. "I shouldn't have pushed you since I could see how upset it was making you."

"You can push me," he answered her seriously, leaning down to capture one of her hands and draw it to his mouth. His dry, chapped lips brushed her hand lightly, his breath warm and a little damp against her skin. His mouth was open, and for a brief moment she could feel the gentle bite of his teeth on her third knuckle, just above the gimmal ring. His face was very close to hers at that moment, his eyes heavy, his hair as dark as ink and mussed around his temples, the corner of his mouth turned up in that wry, private smile that he shared with no one else. "Just realize," he warned, making full and brutal use of the lower tones of his register, "That I may sometimes  _push you back_."

Amoretta's brain entirely short-circuited at the superbly delivered  _threat_ , and she was sitting there, her face madly violet, her heart beating like it was entirely out of order, when he snorted and dropped her hand back into her lap.

"You're so easy to read," he remarked dryly, leaning back against the piano.

As she came to understand that he had indeed _pushed her back_ , she was fuming.

"Hieronymous, what an absolutely  _awful_ thing to do!" she said, rising up on her knees to plant her elbows on the bench beside him.

"I did warn you," he said with an idle shrug. He was clearly feeling pleased with himself again.

"After the fact," she complained. "What if I did that to you?" she demanded.

"You do," he said frankly, rolling his eyes briefly. "All of the damned time." He began counting off her offenses on his fingers. "You have no idea how to keep your hands to yourself, you take your clothes off in front of me so often I am convinced you are a nudist, and the way you say my name - "

He broke off suddenly and rolled his eyes up to look at the ceiling.

"Well?" she asked, leaning forward with a pleased smile and raised eyebrows. "How do I say your name?"

His eyes flicked down from the ceiling and she felt pinned in place by their intensity. "In a way that ought to be banned _in defense of_   _public decency_ ," he finished deliberately.

"Well then, I suppose we'll just have to agree that we're both guilty parties," Amoretta said with a laugh, then she tilted her head to the side slightly. "You know," she said kittenishly, "There is something I've never done, but I've always wanted - "

"You may nix the charm school, Hebe," he cut her off brusquely, uncertain of where her embroidered fancies might be heading. "Now what is it, really?"

Her fingertips rattled snappily against the hard black case that leaned against the piano bench.

"The flute," she said with a funny little smile. "I've never heard you play, but I would like to very much."

He considered the black case very thoughtfully, then stood.

"All right," he said, leaning down to take the case from her. "I'll play, but on no account am I to have commentary from you until I've finished."

She sat back on the floor and made herself comfortable. "Of course I wouldn't interrupt you, Hieronymous."

He eyed her balefully as he leaned over to unsnap the latches on the flute case, but said nothing.

After assembling the beautiful silver flute, he stretched, leaning backwards as he arched his back, and shaking out his arms as if he was stiff from sitting. He paused for a moment in silent contemplation, and then raised the instrument to his lips.

Amoretta could not have said what she expected when Grabiner began to play, but whatever it had been it left her mind the moment the low, clear notes came winding out of the heart of the silver flute and into the open air. The sound was rich, careful, pensive. The tune wandered as if it were lost, looping back on itself. It wasn't lonely, really, although it gave the strong impression of  _being alone_.

Grabiner's fingers moved smoothly over the open holes of the flute so that it didn't really seem as if he was  _playing_ at all, rather that music was somehow being  _born_ from the flute. Although he was mostly very still, except as he needed to move his hands to play, as the moody tune wandered around them both, he moved with it from time to time, swaying slightly on his feet as if coaxing the sound out of the secret soul of the flute.

She had never thought of the flute as a quiet, thoughtful instrument before. In the past, when she had considered the flute, she thought only of high soprano trills like the ruffles on a pretty new dress, or of robins singing in the springtime, or of girls in a marching band with pompoms on their shoes.

Grabiner's playing was soft, yet powerful, deliberate, and yet also slightly  _idle_. It beckoned. When he played, his forehead wrinkled slightly, as if he was considering something very difficult, and yet at the same time, the music wasn't angry. It had strength, but the strength was restrained, as if bound up in coils of silver wire. It had throat to it, the sound of that flute when the notes dropped low, smoky and whispered, like fingertips on her shoulder, or down her spine.

It was as if she were standing in the cobbled square of Hamelin at midnight, caught in the enchantment that would carry her away.

At last, the song wound down to a close, and as he finished Amoretta realized he had played for less than five minutes, although those five minutes had left her heart pulling heavily inside her chest, as if it wanted to escape.

As he lowered his flute, she scrambled to her feet.

It all came tumbling out, as it often did when she struggled to get difficult, complicated thoughts in order.

"Hieronymous, that was spectacular," she declared, gingerly catching hold of his arm, as if she were afraid she might upset the flute. "It was just so - it was  _perfect_. It got inside me," she put her hand over her heart. "I don't even know how to feel right now." She shook her head. "All I know is that if I wasn't in love with you already, then I'd certainly be in love with you now."

"I do have my uses," he admitted vaguely with a shrug, but it was clear he was at least a little pleased by her praise.

"Do you play very often?" she wondered. He'd made no move to play in their time together at school, although they had spoken of it briefly.

"Mostly when the mood strikes me," he admitted. "Not often when students are around," he said grimly, "But sometimes Rail and the headmistress and I get together to play a little."

"An Iris Academy jam session!" Amoretta cried approvingly and Grabiner rolled his eyes.

"The headmistress plays the cello and Rail the violin. I would hardly call them 'jam sessions,'" he disagreed.

"I'd really like to see that!" Amoretta said excitedly, tugging on Grabiner's arm. He shifted his flute to his other hand so there was no chance she might accidentally destroy it with her cheerful exuberance.

"I imagine you'll get to, as the headmistress is keen on picking you up as our fourth, on piano," he said, glancing behind himself at the upright that stood against the wall.

The flush in Amoretta's cheeks rose again, and she felt a little light-headed as she stammered, "I - I - I don't know, I mean - I don't know that I'm very good."

Grabiner shrugged as he began disassembling his flute. "It's only if you like," he said. "Don't feel pressured into it."

"Well," she began awkwardly, shuffling in place, "I think I would like, only - "

"You're afraid of embarrassing yourself?" Grabiner supplied with a raised eyebrow, and she ducked her head in shame.

"That's the problem," she admitted, her cheeks scarlet.

He had finished latching the flute case again and straightened to put one hand firmly on her shoulder. "You have time," he reminded her. "Years and years of time. Don't get caught up in trying to be a genius at everything at once. If you want to practice, you can practice. You have time. I'm in no hurry."

Amoretta felt entirely overwhelmed by her feelings, and stumbled close to him, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist.

"I do love you," she murmured into his body as she shook her head for emphasis. "Very much."

"I know," he said a little weakly, and patted her head until she quieted.

After she had spent the greater part of the momentum of her heart, they went back to sit by the sofa and he reclaimed the book he had abandoned there. As he flipped it over, she took interest in the subject. He was reading Merleau-Ponty.

"Isn't phenomenology a bit heavy for an evening by the fire?" Amoretta teased as she leaned her head against his shoulder.

"There isn't any fire," he reminded her. It was true, both the fireplaces in the front of the house were cold, but the lamp on the end table bathed them with warm light. "Besides," he said, "The heaviness of any subject is really relative to one's understanding of it, or would you rather that I be reading _Noddy Goes to Toyland_?"

"It's got to be all one thing or the other with you, hasn't it?" she asked, wrinkling her nose slightly as she squinched her face in amusement. "You can be awfully extreme," she added as she began to take the braid out of her hair. Given the weather, she thought it was unlikely that either of them would be going out again that night.

"So I can be," he admitted, opening the book, but then shifting his attention to her as he watched her patiently working her fingers through her hair.

She watched him watching her, and neither said anything. They simply sat next to one another in silent observation of the other's movements. He watched her fingers move, and she watched his eyes move.

In the end, she was the one who broke the silence.

"What do you think it means," she wondered aloud, "To desire something?"

He abruptly shifted his eyes away from her. "What kind of question is that?" he asked tersely.

"What I mean is," she ran her teeth over her lower lip thoughtfully. "Does it mean to  _want_ something? To be  _in want_  of something? To  _need_ something? It doesn't seem to mean those things. Is it - "

"It's a longing for something," Grabiner cut her off as he looked back over at her. She had finished taking her hair down by now, and it lay in a complicated mess of curls over her shoulders and down her back.

Her brow wrinkled. "But why longing?" she struggled to put her meaning into words. "What is longing? I'm trying to understand that."

"Longing is a yen toward something that is perceived to provide happiness or joy," he said deliberately, adopting the tone he used for his lectures. "People don't long for pain, unless pain brings them pleasure, in which case it isn't strictly pain."

"But I'm already happy," Amoretta volunteered, the complicated expression still drawn on her face.

This then, was not an entirely hypothetical conversation, and Grabiner shifted slightly where he sat, as if mildly uncomfortable.

"So you want to be  _more_ happy," he said, and she shook her head.

"That isn't it," she denied, and then she shrugged, "Or well, I suppose that's not really what I'm asking. It doesn't have the real  _meaning_ to it. Let me think," she ordered, then sat with her fingers laced together, deep in contemplation for several moments. He continued to watch her. "It's like, it seems like there ought to be an absence to be filled, but there isn't. There isn't a void, or lack of something. When you're hungry, there's a void. It isn't like being hungry."

"It is," he disagreed shortly, and then looked away again.

"It isn't!" she insisted, tucking her chin sharply with the force of her declaration.

"It  _is_ ," he disagreed again more sharply, turning to face her again reflexively. "You are a physical, material being, not a creature of dreams and vision. Whatever it is that you desire is also a physical, material substance, just as food is. You have a lack and are trying to fill it."

She laughed suddenly, her tension broken. "Oh no," she said, shaking her head. "That wasn't really what I meant. I wasn't disagreeing about being made of flesh. Of course the thing that I want is a real physical thing with some sort of substance, because it exists in the world, but the desire, it isn't really a separate thing from me, just like the thing that I want, I don't think it's a separate thing from you. You couldn't bottle either one up and exhibit it in a museum. It's a hard thing to understand," she admitted.

"Is it?" Grabiner asked, and his voice was thick, as if he hadn't used it in years. Amoretta was so caught up in her consideration of the topic that she apparently took no notice.

"Well, I wouldn't have asked if I understood it," she said importantly, as if that made everything perfectly clear. "My hunger isn't really separate from me either," she admitted thoughtfully, "But it's not really like being hungry," she said, "Because I don't have an emotional response to baked potatoes." She paused. "Well, I suppose I might if I were very  _very_ hungry - "

"You have a neurochemical response to them," he cut her off again. He was seeking firm footing in their conversation.

"That is true," Amoretta agreed, thoughtfully nibbling on the tip of her thumb. "Maybe it is more like being hungry than I thought. There is a certain keenness - " She shook her head. "It's still not the same. I'll try to think of another way to explain it." She ruminated for a few moments before brightening. "Oh, I know. Let me try to explain it this way. If I'm hungry, I  _want_. I think that's the difference. If I'm tired, I  _want_. If I'm thirsty, I  _want_. Right now I don't  _want_ though. I'm not wanting anything, really. It's stronger than want. It's so strong that I think it'd really drag me away from all those wants, if I let it. If eating a baked potato turns on a happiness light in my brain, then this ought to ring all the bells that there are."

"What is it that you want?" Grabiner asked tensely, and Amoretta could see how his hand tightened on his book. She half worried that he would spring up from the sofa again and retreat to the other side of the room. Well, if that was what happened, then that was what happened. She couldn't help being who she was, after all.

She shook her head.

"I told you," she disagreed mildly. "I don't want anything. That's the problem."

"Well then,  _what_ \- " he demanded, his volume rising gradually with his uncertainty.

"Your hands in my hair," Amoretta answered quietly.

For a moment, she felt all his muscles contract, as he were bracing for his own death, but then all at once he relaxed, and when he spoke, it was calm and even.

"Come here," he said simply.

The sound of the rain outside was almost impossibly loud, while at the same time being as enveloping as silence. They had both become accustomed to it during their discussion, selectively tuned it out, but now that neither spoke it became inescapable, an audible hush, as if they could both feel the trembling vibration of the rain as it dashed itself against the stones outside.

She ended up sprawled mostly in his lap, her cheek pillowed against his thigh. It was an enviable position, she thought, perhaps most enviable of all because she was there at his invitation. She was used to invading his space, but this time she did not come as an invader. She was something else.

His hand in her hair was very slow, thoughtful, pensive. Inexplicably she thought of the sound of his flute, and this caused her to involuntarily squirm in place slightly. He chuckled and it was a very brief noise. His satisfaction hung in the air after the sound had faded. Amoretta closed her eyes to better focus on the  _feeling_ of him touching her.

His fingertips traced slow patient, circles against her scalp, as if carefully exploring the shape of her skull. Then he dragged his fingers through her hair, separating out the curls even as he tugged at the more stubborn ones. He was very deliberate in his movements, as if every time the pads of his fingers came in contact with her skin was a moment that ought to be remembered in his flesh. She rubbed her cheek against the familiar fabric of his trousers as if she wished to bury herself there.

And then he very carefully cupped the base of her skull, his fingers splayed through her dark hair.

She shivered as she was overwhelmed by a powerful wave of nostalgia.

He had held her this way before.

Exhausted, barely conscious, they had lain together on the cold stone floor of his bedroom, amid the litter of gutted and dying candles, near the corpse of the dead dove, and he had cupped the base of her skull.

"Sit up," she heard him say distantly, and after some mild confusion of sorting herself out, she pushed herself up on her hands and knees, feeling punch drunk. She sat down on her bottom again, her feet tucked under her. Her eyes were still half closed when he kissed her.

He braced himself up with one arm when he moved closer to her, catching her chin with his hand and turning her face up for the kiss. As he kissed her, the old sofa creaked as he shifted his weight to put his arm around her and pull her sideways into his lap, and then his fingertips were on her neck, and he could feel the beat of her blood under his fingers. Her mouth was warm and her breath was moist, and after the kiss broke, he leaned his cheek against her face, abandoned in the feeling of having her skin against his.

Then he took a very deep breath and tried to get his thoughts in order.

It was time.

It was time to face what there was to face.

He could not withdraw from it any longer, putting comfortable distance between himself and the decision.

"Do you trust me?" he asked her very quietly.

Amoretta, her face damp against his neck, shook her head, and he let out a small sound that was gratitude mixed with exasperation.

"Of course you do," he admitted. "I shouldn't have asked." He was still for a moment, then said, "Will you do something for me?" he asked.

She nodded against his neck. He tensed again, and then forced himself to relax.

He stood up and then carefully drew her up to her feet.

"I need you to do this for me," he said urgently. "I will explain, I promise, but for now just do as I say. Go upstairs and get your robe," he said seriously, "And then come to meet me in the workshop."

Amoretta bit her lip and did as she was told.

* * *

The workshop was dim and quiet when she arrived carrying her robe in her arms. Only one of the lamps was lit, and all the curtains were drawn. As she entered the room, he closed and locked the door behind her, then took her hand and pulled her toward the open part of the workspace.

"There's something I have to understand, Amoretta," Grabiner said earnestly, although he was clearly distracted, talking himself round in circles. "It's very important. I promise I'll share it with you when I have all the pieces, but I need your cooperation - "

Her smile was a little wistful as she tilted her head slightly to the side.

She was willing.

"What is it that you need me to do, Hieronymous?" she asked.

He looked at her very steadily for a moment, as if trying to make up his mind about something difficult, but then he shook his head. He had already made his decision.

"I need to cast a spell," he said. "It's just a diagnostic, but it's a complicated diagnostic. I've got to lay a circle, and it would be best if you changed into your robe - "

"It's a diagnostic on me," Amoretta realized with a mixture of confusion and uncertainty.

"Yes," Grabiner admitted quietly. "It's a diagnostic on you."

"Why?" she asked, shifting her head to the side again. She was obviously uncomfortable, but struggling to be brave, to be thoughtful, to be pleasant, and not to give away her fear.

It was all of her there, visible in one moment: the strength, the nervous energy, her genuineness, the fear that she was fighting to push off, her warmth, that confidence and her tentativeness. He loved her impossibly, as if he had no other way to be, just as she had no other way to be. It was something he understood - as he had understood it dozens of times before - with a certainty he felt in the hard, unforgivable parts of himself. He knew again as he had known before that he had never had any other choices besides the ones he had made. He had loved her from before the first.

He stepped closer to her and let the warmth of his hands come to rest on her shoulders.

"You are incredible," Grabiner said quietly. "Every drop of you, every moment of you." He lowered his eyes. "I wish I wasn't so poor with words, so I could explain to you how much I love you in some way that might mean something. My love for you isn't a great love," he said haltingly, "It isn't beautiful. It isn't poetic. It isn't fashionable. It's a small love, dirty from being fumbled and dropped, made up of thousands and thousands of pricks of pain and happiness and confusion. I hope," he tensed again, giving himself a sharp shake before he finished very lowly, "I hope that it's acceptable to you."

Amoretta trembled under his hands and his confession, and when she found her voice, it was shy, but honest.

"It's my candle," she said with a pale smile. "It's your hand that I want in the dark."

He kissed her then as if she were the hem of an empress, or the fingerbone of a saint.

Then he took a deep breath and he answered her question as best he could.

"There's something I need to understand," he repeated gently. "About you. You don't have to be frightened," he said. "I'm here, and I won't do anything to you that you don't want me to do. If you don't want me to do this, then it's all right, Amoretta. It's all right."

She raised her hands and took hold of the front of his robes, leaning forward so her forehead came to rest against his chest.

"Is there something wrong?" she asked softly.

He shook his head as he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to him.

"Not wrong," he said. "Confusing. It doesn't - " he struggled, "I've been trying to make sense of it for a while, and now I think I can do that."

"Is it important?" she asked, sniffling.

"It is," Grabiner admitted. "In fact, it may be very important to you. But it isn't so important that I'm willing to see you upset. It  _will_ keep, at least for a while. If you're not ready now, we can wait until you are. I will wait, Amoretta, until you're ready to do this."

"But we will have to do it eventually," she realized, and he nodded again.

"Yes," he said with quiet certainty. "It is something that we'll both need to understand eventually."

She sniffled again, rubbing at her eyes with a balled up fist.

"Then we'd better go ahead and do it," she said resolutely.

"Leap before you look," Grabiner said with affectionate exasperation as he leaned down to kiss her forehead.

"This time I'm trusting you to be the one looking," Amoretta said with a small smile, and then pulled away from him to retrieve the robe she'd left on the arm of the battered workshop sofa.

With her consent, Grabiner had a circle to draw.

After she had changed into her robe in a corner of the room, Amoretta wandered over to the place where Grabiner crouched with a piece of chalk between his fingers, drawing out a complex material circle.

He looked up at her briefly as she came to stand near the framework of the circle and gave her a small smile. He was clearly conflicted and perturbed, but he wanted to comfort her despite his own uncertainties. That in itself was enough to make her smile back at him, despite her anxiety.

"I took off my panties," she volunteered seriously, trying to fill up the silence. At this revelation he froze briefly, so she hastened to explain, shifting from one bare foot to the other, dancing in place. "I wasn't sure if I ought to or not, because you didn't say, but I did."

"That's fine," he said without looking up.

He was concentrating on the circle.

At last he had finished with it, and as he stood up, dusting the green chalk from his hands, he was suddenly very still, looking past her, at the door to the main part of the house.

He excused himself as he brushed past her, and she felt his fingertips against her palm for a brief moment, a gesture of reassurance.

In front of the door he drew his wand, and she watched him in thoughtful contemplation as he laid spell after spell on the workshop's perimeter. They were all wards.

In the end, he returned to her and gave her a wry smile.

"This time I think it would be very dangerous if we were overheard," he explained and she nodded, swallowing hard.

Then he offered her his hand and led her to the circle.

After a deep breath, she stepped into it bravely. He let his hand come to rest on her shoulder briefly, a touch-connection of warmth and encouragement.

"Just relax," he advised. "It shouldn't feel like anything. This is the sort of spell a healer could perform without this advanced setup," he admitted wryly, "But I am not a healer, and so I must rely on the skills I do possess. Be patient," he said seriously. "It should only take a few minutes."

Amoretta nodded and tried to relax. It wasn't so very strange, having a spell cast on her. Grabiner regularly cast spells on her quite without her permission and she thought nothing of it (and neither did he). The fact that he had asked her so seriously this time meant he was doing something that he felt  _required_ her permission. Most commonly he took for granted that he had rights to do whatever he pleased because he had the authority and  _he knew best_ , although he had never done anything to her that had made her feel uncomfortable or upset. He had authority, but he was generally careful about how he used it with her, however cavalier he might seem when he buried her in demerits.

She fidgeted a little.

His spell was already underway.

It was a long spell. She counted six verses before he had finished the incantation. He was lost in concentration as he cast it, tracing out a complex pattern with his wand. She stood very still and felt the brief touch of the magic as it swept over her. She did not fight it, did not contest it, because she willing. She accepted the spell's slow inquiry patiently.

And slow it was. She could still feel the light effects of the spell as it wandered back and forth, over her and through her, even after he had finished casting it. It was a diagnostic spell, so she knew it was producing data - from the length of the spell, she assumed a great deal of data. She could only cast a very simple diagnostic spell that was useful in performing first aid.

Grabiner apparently found the amount of data he was gathering satisfactory, if a bit overwhelming, because the moment he had finished his spell he had scrambled over to his desk to seize pen and paper. He was soon rapidly jotting down notes on the back of a convenient book, his eyes flicking up and down as he read the information the spell was producing.

Of course, as the target of the spell, she could not see what it produced. She was on the inside of the information, and therefore had no idea what was being revealed, although presumably it concerned her physical body. She was schooled well enough to recognize that the spell was green in nature.

All at once a change passed over Grabiner's face, and he rushed to his desk a second time, this time for a ponderously large book that was balanced precariously on the corner. By leaning slightly to the side, Amoretta could divine that the book was Gray's Anatomy, its spine worn from being consulted. He flipped through it for some time, stopping and closely examining certain pages, and then closely studying the readout of the spell.

At last, after about twenty minutes had passed, Amoretta commenced swaying slightly on her feet, because she was tired of having stood still in one place for so long. He took notice of her discomfort immediately and dismissed the spell, crossing to the circle where she stood and putting his arm around her shoulders to steady her.

"You've done a splendid job," he assured her, and then led her back to the battered old sofa where he sat her down.

Although it was May, the room was a little chilly, likely due to the torrential rain outside, so Grabiner cast a warming spell on the sofa, then leaned down so his forehead touched hers.

"Just a few minutes," he said, and it was like a promise. "I just need to look at that I've got for a few minutes."

She nodded and he went across the room to his desk to gather up the notes he'd made. When he returned, pulling an old wooden chair behind him, he glanced up and was startled to find she had not changed back into her clothes, but instead she had simply pulled her legs up onto the sofa with her and wrapped her arms around them. If it gave him pause, it did not give him much pause.

He pulled the chair into the circle of warmth directly across from her and settled down in it, leaving the books and notes he'd brought on the floor, by his foot.

Grabiner ran his hand through his hair and then leaned back in his chair slightly, thinking.

"Amoretta," he said at last, "This may seem like a strange question, but have you ever been to a hospital?"

Amoretta's brow wrinkled briefly, as she thought about it. "You mean to visit? Well, Aunt Tulip broke her big toe once - "

Grabiner shook his head. "No," he said. "Not to visit. To stay."

At this it was Amoretta's turn to shake her head. "No, I haven't," she said. "There hasn't ever been any need. Normally I'm very healthy!" she insisted.

Grabiner thought about it again.

"Have you ever been to the doctor?" he wondered.

Amoretta rolled her eyes. "Of course I have!" she laughed. "What a silly question."

"When is the last time you saw the doctor?" he asked thoughtfully.

"Tucker?" Amoretta asked, brightened by a cheerful memory. "Dr. Tucker," she corrected with a laugh. "Oh, year before last, I guess. He's a great friend of my father's. He's a very nice man. Really funny. Always telling jokes."

"I see," said Grabiner. He was silent for a moment. "Amoretta, have you ever seen any doctor other than 'Tucker'?"

She thought about it, and then shook her head.

"No," she admitted. "I really don't suppose I have. If there was ever a problem, I was sick or something, even when I was away at school, Tucker would show up, sure as anything. He's really a wonderful man."

She squirmed in her seat because she could follow the path of his thoughts even if he was keeping his face carefully schooled.

"Hieronymous, I hope you aren't about to tell me that I don't have a liver or something - " she laughed awkwardly, and he flinched slightly.

There it was.

A tell.

Her panic began to mount.

"Hieronymous - " she began nervously, her fingers fidgeting one over another.

"Amoretta," he said quietly, "Before I say anything else, I want you to understand something. You are a person. You will always be a person. Nothing anyone says can ever change that."

" _Hieronymous_  - " she cut in, her brow wrinkled in great distress and confusion.

"I don't believe that you're a human being," he said.

" _What_?" she cried out in confusion. Her distress was so great she stood up from the sofa.

He got to his feet as she did, catching her arms in his hands and holding her still.

"Of course I'm a human being," she hiccuped frantically, her hysteria beginning to spiral out of control. "What else would I be?"

"Something else," he answered calmly, still holding her steadily, although he could feel the anxiety trembling out of her under his hands.

"Hieronymous, this isn't funny - " by now her panic was real and she was sobbing. "I don't know what sort of joke you meant this to be - "

Of course, she knew in her bones that when he said something deliberately and with intention that there wasn't anything funny about it at all. He was as serious as death. But she was clinging desperately to any slim thread of normalcy that tied her to the moments before he had told her she was not a human being.

She was not a human being.

She was some other strange, unknown thing.

It was absurd.

Of course it was absurd. She was really dreadfully human. She was  _obscenely_ human.

It made no sense at all.

But she did not think for a moment that Grabiner might have said such a thing to her if he did not believe it himself, if he was not as certain as he could possibly be that what he said was true. Although impulsive, he was not a man who leaped wildly at half-baked ideas.

He was thoughtful, cautious, and reliable.

Which is why she was so absolutely terrified.

Grabiner had to raise his voice slightly to be heard over her hysteria. "Amoretta, I am serious," he said, and his grip tightened on her arms as she began to struggle to pull away from him. "Calm down and listen to me," he said. "I know it seems frightening, but it doesn't have to be. This has changed nothing about you, but I believe it is something that you ought to know."

His calm, even voice gave her something to hold onto, and she held onto it with all her might. She took several gulping deep breaths as she tried to calm down and at last she was panting, but she felt calmer than she had been before. Perhaps a bit reluctantly he loosened his grip on her shoulders and guided her back down to the sofa where she sat, arms wrapped around herself. He glanced once at the chair he had vacated, and then resolutely sat down on the sofa next to her.

She sniffled, hugging herself with her own arms, and then asked, "Well? What does it mean, then?"

Grabiner put his arm around her and drew her close, so she was leaning against his shoulder.

"You've never experienced menstruation, have you?" he asked her patiently.

She flushed a little, and then shook her head. "I'm a later bloomer, I guess. It isn't so terribly strange for it to be so late, although I know it is unusual."

His arm tightened around her shoulders slightly before he spoke again, but when he did speak it was clear and quiet.

"Amoretta, you don't have a reproductive system. You don't have any primary sexual characteristics or organs. They aren't underdeveloped," he said, shaking his head. "They simply don't exist."

"What are you talking about?" she asked with honest confusion. "Of course I have, I mean I - "

He gave her a brief, subdued smile. "I believe that you  _think_ that you have, that everyone else thinks that you have as well, but I did a thorough anatomical diagnostic. You certainly have a relatively normal digestive system and urinary system - you do have a liver, by the way. But you don't have a uterus. You don't have a vaginal canal. You don't have ovaries. In fact, you don't have gonads of either variety."

Amoretta's brow knit up, as she turned over the information he had so calmly submitted to her. "I don't have - but I must have all that. I'm a girl, aren't I?"

Grabiner shrugged briefly and said, "If you'd like to be. If you're asking if you're biologically female, then I can answer that you are not. I think if you were human you might possibly be identified as intersexed, although that isn't particularly accurate in this case."

"But I don't want to be a boy!" Amoretta cried out in distress, taking hold of one of his hands desperately. "Boys are smelly, and they belch, and they're hairy all over!"

Grabiner laughed helplessly at that, covering her nervously fidgeting hands with his own. "I'm afraid I must take offense to that for men everywhere." Then he shook his head briefly, and tried to gently guide her back to his point. "Amoretta, you aren't a boy. You don't have any masculine characteristics at all, outside some of your skeletal and muscular structures, which I think are best identified as ambiguous. You aren't biologically male any more than you're biologically female."

She shook her head again. "I don't understand any of this. How could any of this be true? I'm sixteen years old! Surely someone would have noticed by now - "

"You didn't notice because it was your own body, so of course you believed you were just like other girls," he explained his thoughts. "Without an examination, it's convincing enough, even when you're nude," he looked away briefly before continuing. "If you had ever been to a hospital, then I'm sure it would have been discovered, however - "

"Tucker," Amoretta broke in suddenly with new understanding. "I've never been to a hospital, and the only doctor who's ever looked after me is Tucker!" She paused and her eyes dilated as she connected up all the varied bits of information. "My father knows. That's why we have Tucker. He's always known, hasn't he?"

Grabiner thought back to what Noir had said to him underneath the fir tree, when they had stood before the ruins of the old academy.

_That's why I had to be sure you were equipped to deal with her._

"I believe he has," Grabiner admitted.

"But then why not tell me?" she asked in extreme confusion, her brow knit together again. "I mean, I was obviously going to find out eventually. It's amazing I hadn't found out before this, sort of like, exceptionally blind luck - " She stopped cold at that and was very silent for a moment. At last she continued a little nervously. "I mean, this is something regular people have to deal with, isn't it? And there are surgical procedures these days, to help people fit in," she laughed tremulously. "I'm sure it wasn't so nice for you to find out that your wife wasn't really your wife - "

Her nervous laughter was a poor cover for the tension in her voice that was as tight as a wire. She was on the edge of crying again, but trying to make a joke out of everything in a desperate attempt that he not see how upset she was.

"Amoretta, you  _are_ my wife," he said very deliberately, his arm tightening around her again as she tried to slip away. "I told you. Nothing has changed."

" _Everything has changed_ ," she sobbed out as the storm broke at last. "I'm not even, I'm not even - " she mashed her eyes shut against the tears and shook her head savagely. "I guess I'm not anything at all, since I can't even be a boy. I've always known I was strange, and now I guess I know why. I'm not - I can't - "

" _Amoretta_ ," he cut into her misery by calling her name sharply, like snapping his fingers.

She fell silent, but covered her face with her hands, her breathing rapid. She began to hiccup uncontrollably again.

He put both his arms around her then and pulled her close to him. She didn't resist, and he could feel that she was shuddering with suppressed sobbing.

"Amoretta, I know this is a great deal for you to take in," he said quietly as he slowly ran his hand over her back. "But you need to understand that I've suspected this for more than a month now, so I'm not really surprised. I know that's not fair to you. You've had all of this dumped on you all at once, so it's a lot for you to think about, but I do want you to understand that my feelings haven't changed. I love you. That's all there is for me."

Amoretta shook her head fiercely against his chest.

"That can't be all there is," she denied, sobbing. "Everything's different now. You can't - "

"I  _do_ ," he cut her off shortly, and his arms tightened around her briefly before he relaxed again. "But I'll understand if you no longer want," he paused, as if struggling to find the words that he meant. At last he finished very lamely, "This."

"Of course I want this," Amoretta confessed, weakly putting her arms around his neck and crying very pathetically. "I've never wanted anything else. But how can," she shook her head again. "How can you want me? How can we even," she panicked, "How would we even - " she broke off and then just gesticulated vaguely.

When Grabiner looked at her then, tear streaked, deeply disturbed, and yet wildly flailing to get her ideas across he felt all the tension in him drain away as he laughed, shaking his head.

"I imagine that we'll be able to work it out," he suggested meaningfully, pulling her against his chest again.

"I'm serious!" Amoretta protested as she weakly beat against him.

"I'm  _also_ serious," Grabiner said, punctuating his remark by snapping his bootheel smartly against the ground. He shook his head. "Everything about you is unexpected, but that doesn't mean it's unwanted. You are my wife. I made a bet against death to keep you, and I would make that same bet again, right now, if I needed to do so."

"Even with - " she sniffled again and struggled to continue. "Even with - "

"It's really nothing but a lot of words," he said seriously as he held her close to him. "It doesn't change anything about the real you who's here with me. You are you. That's all that matters to me. The you that you are is the you that I love. If you choose to become a new thing, then I'll love that you as much as I love the you that you are now."

She was silent after this declaration, and he resolved not to push her. She did need time to think. She needed time to make her own decisions about how she felt and what she wanted, and he would not pressure her to accept him out of gratitude. He untangled her arms from around his neck and let her withdraw to the corner of the sofa where she sat, arms and legs all bundled up, looking like a little hedgehog.

"Why didn't my father tell me?" she asked again in a small voice.

"I believe he didn't tell you because of what you are," Grabiner answered her seriously. "Everything about the way you've been raised, isolated in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, no photographs, no doctors, being sent away to school, and changing schools nearly every year, coming here as a wildseed with no idea of anything, I believe that's all been an attempt to keep you from being discovered."

"But why?" Amoretta asked in confusion. "Discovered by whom?"

"Everyone," Grabiner shook his head. "Anyone. I don't know." He frowned.

"But why should anyone - "

"Because you're a divine being," he answered, then leaned down to remove one of the books he had left piled by his abandoned chair. It was _the Nine Circles of Fire._  "I believe based on the observable phenomena that you're a divine being of at least rank S, although I'm not entirely sure. You may be of a rank even higher than that. Honestly, the luck you exhibit is so extreme as to be celestial."

Amoretta shook her head as if to deny what he said.

"I don't really have any idea of what you're talking about," she said. "Are you trying to tell me that I'm, that I'm, that I'm from heaven or something? Like Clarance from _It's A Wonderful Life_?"

This brought another brief wry smile to his face. "Sometimes it seems so," he admitted, and then shook his head. "No, you're not from heaven any more than that beast of a boy who assaulted you is from hell. There is no 'heaven' the way you're picturing it. There is no 'God Almighty' in a golden throne who sends orders to his worshipful faithful by means of a holy telegraph. There are some divine realms in the Other," he said, waving her off dismissively, "But they would hardly qualify for what you're imagining: St. Peter and pearly gates, I'm sure," he said dismissively, as if the image left a bad taste in his mouth. "There are really all sorts of divine beings: demigods, spentas, angels, valkyries, apsara - the ranking system was invented by witches as a way to classify these beings in relation to their relative power and influence. They can sometimes be invoked if they're feeling charitable. The one thread that ties them all together has nothing to do with heaven or a blessed holy land. It has to do with causality. Divine beings are all beloved by fate."

"You mean they're lucky," Amoretta realized quietly, and Grabiner nodded.

"Yes. That is the real meaning by the phrase 'divine being.' A divine being is someone beloved by fate," he agreed. "Many of the more common types of divine beings have relatively similar abilities and are thus generally grouped together in racial associations. Many of them are psychopomps associated with the dead and dying, or they otherwise provide the visible workings of the will of greater masters - divine beings of yet higher rank. They're ranked according to their relative power, primarily relating to the influence they can exert on causality. The lower rankings are naturally more common, and many people who are 'a little lucky' may well have drawn some small part of their heritage from a divine forbear. You, unfortunately, did not come with a label," he said with a small smile, "And so I've had to do some detective work of my own." He leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees and at last said plainly what he meant. "I believe you have some relation to one of the ἀρχάγγελος, the great angels - you would be more familiar with the term archangel."

It seemed like the world was spinning around her, entirely out of control. Amoretta felt completely lost.

"But if there isn't any heaven, then what are angels, anyway, other than ornaments to hang on a Christmas tree? I guess I've always just imagined people in long white nightgowns playing cardboard harps, like in a Christmas pageant," she said. "Or Clarance, I suppose. Oh, do angels come from dead people? When good people die, do they become angels?"

Grabiner scoffed, and this time it was more brutal. "You and your infantile pop theology. Where do you learn these things? Good lord, you do need educating." He massaged his temples briefly. "No, angels do not, as you so colloquially put it 'come from dead people.' When 'good people' die, they moulder in the ground, the same as everybody else, unless they're witches that have chosen to complete rites of reincarnation, or otherwise have nonhuman ancestors that provide them with some sort of transmigration."

"Well, if they aren't dead people, they where do they come from?" Amoretta demanded indignantly.

Grabiner shrugged. "The great angels are particularly powerful divine beings, native to the Other. They're a separate race, quite removed from humanity. They've been attested for about twenty five hundred years, perhaps a bit longer. There aren't that many of them - a few dozen at most - therefore they're all known by their individual names. They have no allegiance to any greater power, nor really to one another, outside of personal associations. They very rarely have anything to do with human beings, witches or otherwise. Rare is the wizard who can successfully invoke a great angel, although many have tried, certainly. Invoking the lesser angels is generally more successful. There are entire styles of magic devoted to invoking angels and other powerful Otherworld beings, although these are not taught at Iris Academy. If you had gone to Courthouse School, you might have learned some Kabbalistic magic, if that is where your interests had developed - which would have certainly been a bizarre turn of events: a great angel invoking themselves! How absurd."

Amoretta forced a smile, but Grabiner could see she was still confused and uncomfortable, so he continued his explanation.

"The great angels are semi-immutable beings, meaning they don't really ever die, nor do they change in any substantial way," he said. "They are not born. Like many powerful beings of the Other it is postulated that they were dreamed into existence by humanity over many years, until at last they gained permanence. As semi-immutable beings, they do not have to eat and they do not have to sleep, although they do dream, perhaps because it was from dreams that they originally emerged. Their personalities differ wildly from individual to individual, although all are remarked as being, for lack of a better word,  _inhuman_. They aren't easily understood by mortal beings, and they have a difficult time understanding mortal beings in return. This is one of the reasons they rarely answer an invocation, and rarely meddle in the affairs of humans. They simply are not interested. Of course, humanity has always been interested in them, for obvious reasons. They're capable of creating powerful reality altering effects without the observable use of magic at all. There are accounts of them performing actions that amount to Great Mysteries."

Amoretta shook her head again. She was still without footing and struggling to understand.

"Why is it that you think I'm like that? Why do you think I'm one of those things? They sound very impressive and strange, but that doesn't sound anything like me at all, apart from being lucky. I feel like I'm just turning circles in the air."

Grabiner raised one finger, indicating silence, and then continued.

"The great angels are all completely androgynous. According to accounts they're like perfectly formed humans, with the exception of additional skeletal structures around and under the scapula and attached to lumbar vertebra two. These structures are meant to anchor the physical manifestation of their wings," he explained seriously. "You have all of those structures."

"But I don't have any wings," Amoretta protested, and Grabiner nodded again.

"That's true. You don't have any wings, just as you have to eat and to sleep, you age, and you communicate easily with other humans," he shook his head. "That's why I said I believed you were  _related_ to a great angel, although I'm not entirely certain how."

"Do you think," Amoretta began tentatively, fidgeting again, "Do you think my mother - "

Grabiner shook his head. "I do not," he answered her question before she could finish it. "I told you before that the great angels are all androgynous. They cannot reproduce. The only group of lesser angels that does reproduce are the grigori, and you are absolutely nothing like one of the nephilim." He shook his head. "Besides, the nephilim are not beloved by fate."

"Maybe I'm a funny nephilim," Amoretta suggested with a weak smile.

"You'd be the funniest one yet," Grabiner said with a raised eyebrow. "Nephilim are impossibly tall and broadly built, twelve to fourteen feet, and several hundred pounds. They are also almost exclusively masculine, and have pronounced genitalia. You're as likely to be one of the nephilim as you are to be the tooth fairy," he said as he shook her head. "No, what I believe is that you have some part of the angelic essence bound up in a mortal body. I can't say if it's your ib, or anima, or your psyche, or some other part of your essence altogether. It may be several things at once, leaving only your physical body as mortal and material, although that does raise some further questions." He paused to thoughtfully tap his foot slowly against the floor while thinking. At last, he explained it this way, "If you didn't have the angelic skeletal structures I might be willing to entertain that you're possibly some strange half-immortal spawn of a demigoddess - as if I needed that in my life. But even if you do not have wings, you have the wing structures. I really do believe you are an angel," he said seriously. "That is the explanation that seems to most readily fit the facts."

"So am I some sort of reincarnation? I don't know what all those words mean in the context of being a witch, but I do recognize some of them. They all have to do with the soul, don't they?" Amoretta asked in confusion. "You said they're nearly immortal, so I don't understand - "

"Great angels don't reincarnate," Grabiner said, "They certainly do not transmigrate blissfully into the bodies of mortal human girls. There aren't that many of them, and it's nearly impossible for them to die. When they  _are_ grievously wounded, they just regenerate, rather like an echinoderm. And yet that strange soul of yours came to inhabit your body  _somehow_. I suppose you've got to be some kind of reincarnation. You certainly aren't being inhabited by a greater being. What is you is clearly  _you_ and not something else hiding inside your skin."

"Are you talking about possession?" Amoretta asked in extreme alarm, curling up on herself again.

Grabiner put his hand on her back and rubbed it soothingly.

"Don't become frightened. I told you: you are obviously not possessed. What is divine about your nature is entirely your own, not borrowed from some other place," he insisted, and she shivered despite his reassurances. The idea of her body being inhabited by something other than herself was profoundly disturbing.

"How do you know I'm not possessed?" she asked in a small voice.

Grabiner made a brief sound of dismissal, "Because unlike certain superstitious idiots who huddle around campfires for safety, the witchborn understand possession and have studied it. You ought to think of possession as being something like a medical condition. It can be readily identified and treated. It's really about as dangerous as chickenpox."

"Chickenpox can kill people," Amoretta noted soberly and Grabiner shook his head.

"As can crossing the street," Grabiner said levelly, "Now you're just being silly. You are certainly not possessed. If you are entertaining the notion that you might've sat practically under the headmistress's nose for an  _entire year_ while exhibiting signs of possession, then you clearly don't have a very high opinion of her abilities as the master of Pentachromatic magic," he said. "Besides that, you have been under my feet for months now. If you had exhibited any signs of possession, I would have taken note of them and advised a course of treatment. Right now, you're frightened because you don't understand what's going on, but that's all right. I'm here with you, and we're going to go through this carefully so that you can understand what I understand. This is a lot to take in all at once, I know. But please accept my assurances: you are not possessed. If it will allay your fears, I'll give you some books to read on the subject, but even you ought to recognize that you're being silly. What sort of possession have you ever heard of that physically alters someone's  _skeleton_?" he demanded.

"None," she admitted sheepishly.

"I think you've just watched too many late night movies," Grabiner predicted, "And that's put the fear of what goes bump in the night in you. Please remember, as witches and wizards, to some degree, we  _are_ what goes bump in the night, or at the very least it's our business. In any case, you shouldn't be afraid of the darkness, Amoretta. Being who we are, even in the darkness, it's easy to bring a light."

He conjured a spellflame over his hand as quickly as snapping his fingers, and he sent the light to hover over her shoulder.

She was comforted by his reminder that she could banish darkness just by exercising her will and knowledge.

Amoretta swallowed and then nodded slowly.

Relieved to see her looking a somewhat consoled, Grabiner turned his attentions back to the heart of their discussion.

"Some part of you is divine and angelic." He bit the tip of his thumb in pensive concentration before throwing his hands up and shrugging. "That's the only thing that makes any kind of sense," he looked away steadily for several minutes. "Something about you is immutable and distant and uncanny, and the rest of you is very mortal and human and familiar. You're like Achilles being dipped into the River Styx, only in reverse. It's as if someone has taken an immortal creature and given them a living, breathing, dying body as part of some sort of perverse experiment. There has never been any record of anything like this in any text I've found, except in children of half-divinity, which you cannot be. And yet you're here. I cannot say you're impossible because you exist."

"I'm glad you're willing to accept that I exist, even though I seem to contradict reality," she laughed listlessly and she seemed very tired as she dropped her head down to rest on her knees. "It's funny to think that my soul should be so remarkable, considering that I almost lost it twice."

"Yes well," Grabiner said grimly, "I think the reason you nearly lost it twice is  _because_ it's so desirable." He looked away again. "I believe that boy discerned your nature at some time during the school year, and that is why chose to do to you what he did to you. He marked you as his property. Far more impressive than a mere mortal soul, you have a divine soul. I am sure he believes having a great angel sit in attendance on him at his court will be a great boon to him."

"It seems like everybody knew but me," Amoretta said helplessly, hugging her knees.

Grabiner glanced down at  _the Nine Circles of Fire_ and thought of the young man who had put it into his hands.

"Yes," he agreed. "I believe at least a few people took notice. We must be wary of that. The one defense that you can rely on is that this situation is so insane that no reasonable person would ever begin to  _contemplate_ it," he said with a shrug. "A divine being in a kilt and flats with lots of little school chums - I don't really need to tell you how absurd the picture is, do I?"

Amoretta laughed again pitifully. "It's like papa says," she said. "I'm so outrageously impossible that it's a hard pill to swallow."

"We'll have to depend on that," Grabiner said seriously. "I know all of this will be very strange for you. You have a lot to think about," he said, "But you must on no account speak of this with  _anyone_ but me. Not even your father, do you understand? We still don't know where he stands in all of this, and letters can be intercepted. I want to believe he's your ally, since he's taken such pains to protect you all of these years, but at the same time I think he must know much more than he has told either of us. The next time we see him in person we'll try and sound him out." His eyes flicked sidelong to look at her briefly. "Considering the fact that the beastly devil knows, or at the very least  _suspects_ , we must assume that this information may eventually become common knowledge, but we must act for now as if it will not."

"Why is it so important that it be kept secret?" Amoretta wondered shyly. "I mean, not everyone at Iris Academy is strictly human, right? Surely I won't be  _that_ reviled."

Grabiner's eyes shifted nervously away from her for a moment. "That isn't the issue. You aren't half-slyph or even a cambion. You're enough to turn the witch world on its ear. You're something very strange, Amoretta. I don't have all the pieces yet. I haven't fit it all together, but - You won the national lottery after buying one ticket. You can pull a flush of royals from an unopened deck of cards. Coincidences line up at your feet to provide you with paths over bottomless chasms. You're  _charmed_ , Amoretta." He looked away again. "Greater than Damien Ramsey will wish to possess you should they realize what you are. Having you at heel would be like having the Great Mother on a chain: a domesticated archangel." He turned his eyes back toward her reluctantly. "And then there is question of  _how you came to be_ ," he said every word very carefully. "We do not know the circumstances of your - your birth. That may be the most important mystery of them all. You must keep all of this hidden, Amoretta," he said seriously. "Both of our lives may depend upon it not being discovered."

"You're trying to protect me from the world," Amoretta said a little sadly. "The headmistress said - "

" _I know what she said_ ," Grabiner answered fiercely as he turned to look at her with dark, heavy eyes. "But I also know what I swore to you. You've been hurt badly already, and that is my fault,  _but I will protect you._ "

"You can't fight the entire world - "

" _I will_ ," he insisted sharply, moving suddenly to advance on her, as if his physical proximity could make his words more true. She drew back a little, curling up into an even smaller ball. Realizing that his intensity had frightened her, he retreated, looking away from her. When he spoke again, it was with quiet resolve. "If it comes to that, that is what I will do."

"I've ruined your life," Amoretta said, dropping her head to her knees again.

"No," Grabiner denied simply, "You've given my life back to me."

"You're very brave," Amoretta said quietly, "But sometimes I don't think you're very clever."

"I'm not very clever," Grabiner admitted honestly. "I'm a stubborn, pigheaded imbecile with a short temper, but I love you. I'm not being defeatist, I'm being practical. These are things I have to consider. I can't just wish away our troubles like they were lemondrops. If the world stands against you, then I've got no other choice but to stand against the world. But please remember, before you go leaping off any balconies, that I am hoping to avoid such a dramatized fate."

Amoretta covered her face with her hands and shivered so hard that she began to twitch. She had been pushed beyond tears into nervous exhaustion.

"Hieronymous, please don't," she began haltingly, "Please don't," she shuddered again as she struggled to get her words out into the air. "Please don't tell me that you chose this path, that you chose  _me_ , in hopes it would lead you to your death."

Grabiner stopped breathing, frozen in place by her accusation. He could not speak, because she had dragged a dark truth out of his heart, one that he had buried so deeply he had lost conscious awareness of it. He put his own arms around himself and tensed so hard that he trembled.

"I can't - " Amoretta sobbed. "I can't accept that. I won't accept that - "

Had he really meant for her to be the punctuation point on his life? If she did end him, would that erase the heavy burden of misery and death that he had accrued during his lifetime? If he died in defense of a small, gentle thing, at least that would be the end of his own suffering, even if it was also the end of hers. He had only borrowed a little time for her, after all. She had been dead already when he made the bargain, or as good as dead. Perhaps things would be different, the next time. Perhaps he would be different. On a different morning he could meet a different girl in a warm garden, and perhaps she would be kind to him.

She did not know - she could not know - how selfish he was, a man alone in a battered, empty house. He was half dead already. She thought him a hero for risking his life to save hers, but hadn't he only been thinking of himself, of his own pain, of his own anguish, of his own loneliness? Hadn't he always been thinking of himself?

Grabiner gripped his own wrist so tightly it felt as if he would break his own bones.

But that wasn't all of it. That wasn't the whole truth. It could never be the whole truth. She wasn't simply a gentle remedy that he wished to capture and bottle in hopes she might generate a brighter tomorrow. To deny that was to deny her own agency. She had piled possibilities up around him, real, present possibilities made of flesh and laughter and her temper that was as sharp as a tack when she was riled up. When he was with her, there were times when he forgot that he hated himself, forgot that he ought to be hated and shunned.

He had been a man with no aims besides surviving in quiet desperation, one who beat himself senseless against the past and slept off his exhaustion in the present.

And then she had created "Tomorrow" on a calendar that had run out of the future, and suddenly days had had meaning again.

But this hadn't happened suddenly at all, not in one golden moment. It had happened gradually, like the ripening of fruit toward its full purpose. It had happened in every moment, whether he saw her or he didn't see her. She had gotten under his skin.

"I chose you," he said helplessly, "Because I couldn't choose anything else."

She was still crying into her knees when he began the incantation to the spell.

On a picnic blanket, in the middle of the March chill, she had given herself to him. Now he would give himself to her. He would be naked and ragged and vulnerable, but he owed her his honesty.

He owed her his heart.

_Communion_.

Grabiner held himself very very still, staring at the floor and trying to remain calm even though he was breathing with difficulty.

_He was terrified._

But.

_He would do this._

Amoretta felt the spell wash over her as she clung miserably to her knees. At first the awareness was weak, like fingertips on her shoulder, or a whisper against the back of her neck, but as she looked up at him, the mess of it all came spilling out, the uncertainty, the shame, his desperate, beautiful, confused love.

She had closed the space between them before she even knew what she was doing, had caught his shoulder and pulled him down to kiss him messily and without regret. He moved forward just as suddenly, pulling her close to him and cupping the back of her head with his palm. After the kiss, he ducked his head to breathe in the scent of her. She smelled warm and faintly sour from having spent the day playing hard with him. It was all real and present, complete and intoxicating in a weird combination of strangeness and familiarity.

It was another door they were passing through together, and once on the other side, the past would fall away again, becoming mythic and half-remembered, their once-upon-a-time that was no longer the now of being.

She had her fingers in his hair, tugging playfully, or perhaps insistently. He wasn't sure which. It didn't really matter.

Her robe had fallen open, baring her shoulders down nearly to her elbows. He opened his mouth against her neck, feeling the skin there, smooth and soft under his tongue. He had gotten the taste of her then, tangy sweet like salt. She tensed when she felt his teeth on her skin, but he did not bite her particularly  _hard_ , just until he heard her whimper.

When his long fingers moved steadily over the bandage that concealed the awful wound on her shoulder, he paused. He saw her squeeze her eyes shut and felt her tense up, as if afraid of his judgement of this terrible scar on her body. It was ugly and grotesque, and she obviously had a fear that it made  _her_ ugly and grotesque.

Apart from all of her other inscrutable physical insecurities, she was also grappling with this.

One of her shoulders was small and delicate and lovely and the other was permanently disfigured. The bandage could hide the truth away, but not erase it. She was marked and scarred, the symmetry of herself destroyed.

But far from being a sign of her own weakness, Amoretta had turned the scar into a defiant mark of her own strength. She would not be owned. She would not be terrified. She utterly refused what was pushed upon her. She would not accept the possibility that the way she lived her life was wrong. Always before when Grabiner had looked at the mark, at the place where the bloody handprint had been seared into her flesh, he had only seen his own failure, his own weakness, his own loss. Looking at her now, he understood that the scar Amoretta bore was her own, and could not be claimed by anyone else. It was her own skin and bones, her own body, her own property. It was her own strength and her own hardship, the thing that was not beautiful made beautiful by her incredible will.

Her tentative willingness to share it with him was irresistible as much as her shy fear that he would reject her was heartbreaking.

He kissed her on the mouth again and she kissed him back, hanging onto the front of his coat even as she felt his arm underneath her as he eased her back, onto the sofa.

Amoretta, pale and flushed with her fingertips laced together over her heart, lay where she had come to rest, her familiar robe pushed open across her hips. It lay like a blanket underneath her. She was rosy from being kissed and rosier from being bitten, but her damp eyes never left him as he leaned down to kiss her again, pushing her knees apart even as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

After this kiss broke, he pulled away from her despite how she tried to hang onto him, pushing distracted fingers through his hair.

He looked at her. He could not help but look at her, but then he was shaking his head, as if he denied this even now.

In the wild chase through the confusion of their desire and longing, Grabiner had at last caught hold of something solid: his incredible self-loathing. Hanging fast to it, he found himself staring forward at a future that was terrifying because it was so unknown. It wasn't for him. It couldn't be for him. He had done so much wrong that even a fleeting happiness was not -

"I can't," he said, and he sounded desperate, "I - "

"Hieronymous, stop asking permission for everything," Amoretta stormed, and it was half a needy demand and half an irate order. She was obviously tired of his nonsense and unwilling to listen to it any longer. She kicked at him ineffectually with one of her small, bare feet in an attempt to get her point across.

That steadied his nerve and he laughed, half drunk with the relief that had flooded into him. He didn't have to be afraid because she had lit the courage in his heart as surely as if she'd struck a match.

"All right," he said deliberately. "I'll stop asking permission."

He stopped asking permission.

After that it was his hands on her, dragging his fingers along first the smooth and then the pebbly flesh, reading her muscles and bones beneath her skin, pressing his fingertips against her to feel the live, animal warmth of her body, feeling the way she squirmed when his hand came to rest on her stomach. It was like an electrified high wire, and they were drunk on one another, trying to make their way from one side to the other. He kissed her throat, feeling her move underneath him, and then he was running his thumb hard over the muscles under the line of her hip, grasping at her sharp hip bones. She was damp and warm, sweat leaving her slick to the touch, and he was a little worried that she would hyperventilate from his attention.

He had only one objective and was both inventive and patient enough to achieve it, despite odds being more against than in favor of him. He was rewarded when he felt her tense and then shudder suddenly, knees locking hard against his upper arm. Then her quiet whimpering turned into an abandoned  _animal_ sound, and she was as wild as any creature who has run free through swaying grasses, or slept under old ferns. Afterward she went very limp and still.

He leaned forward and brushed his lips against her mouth, but she didn't move in response, so he sat back to look at her, leaving a hand still on her stomach. She was still warm to the touch, although the sweat on her body was cooling.

At last she moved very indolently, rolling over onto her side and curling up very slowly, as if she were moving under water.

"Cover me up with something," she ordered hazily, and as he did not have anything else on hand to cover her up with, he shrugged out of his coat and threw that over her. She was apparently satisfied, because she let out a sound of complete and utter contentment.

He rolled his eyes slightly in amusement as he sat down on the sofa again, next to the bare legs that were still sticking out from under the hem of his coat. At the other end of the coat he could see one slender arm and quite a lot of dark, curly hair. He could see nothing more of his wife, but as he had recently made a very thorough study of her, he wasn't terribly put off.

It took a little while for her to recover herself, but recover herself she did, and then she was sitting up with his coat around her bare shoulders, leaning forward expectantly.

"Well?" she asked excitedly, "What's next?"

"What's next?" Grabiner asked with a laugh, "Aren't you greedy?" He waved her off. "There isn't any next. Not today, at any rate. I've exhausted you enough. I ran you around outside for ages, and then I suppose I ran you around inside as well. You're an invalid, remember," he pointed out levelly.

Amoretta planted both her hands on her hips. "So I'm just supposed to let you enjoy yourself without - "

"Hold on a minute," Grabiner cut in, leaning forward himself. "I believe that you might have enjoyed yourself a  _little_ , Miss Suzerain."

" _Well_ ," she said thoughtfully, a wicked smile creeping onto her mouth again, "Maybe a little. But that doesn't have anything to do with anything," she insisted.

"It doesn't?" he asked blandly, as if her answer was only mildly interesting.

"It doesn't!" she repeated with a sharp nod of her head, so that her curls bounced around her face. "I know I can't be your gorgeous, blushing, virgin bride, but at least I can do something about something."

"Darling, you  _are_ my gorgeous, blushing, virgin bride," he said dryly as he pushed her chest lightly to send her falling back on her bottom. He leaned back against the sofa comfortably as he fixed her with an unimpressed stare, "Unless you're keeping something from me."

"Hieronymous Grabiner, you are impossible," Amoretta groused. "Up until just a little while ago I thought I had the plumbing of a girl, which I now know I obviously haven't. What sort of experience do you think I might have, the kind from correspondence school?"

At that Grabiner laughed helplessly, laying his head back against the sofa. He laughed until he was quite exhausted, and he brushed his hand across his eyes to wipe away the tears that had gathered in the corners.

"I am sorry," he apologized. "I shouldn't have teased you. But the answer is still 'no.' N-O. Negative. Negatory.  _Absolument pas_. Now that's something even you ought to understand. There will be plenty of time for you to get all the experience you could possibly want, but right now, you need to rest. If you pass out, shall we say _in flagrante delicto_  and I have to call the headmistress over to resuscitate you, then I will never hear the end of it. I'd rather not."

"Well, what about you, then?" Amoretta demanded.

Grabiner shrugged. "I'm tolerably well acquainted with taking care of my own needs. You don't really have to worry about it."

"I'm going to hit you!" Amoretta announced and then began searching for a suitable weapon. "I'm going to hit you with something, even if I don't know what it is yet - "

"Next you'll be telling me that I'll grow hair on my palms," he said as he fought her off bravely. She had decided to wail on him with his own coat, leaving herself quite threadbare. "Why are you so concerned - "

"Because I want to!" she shouted furiously, her hair a flurry around her face. "You don't get to be in charge of everything, like you're the prince of the universe. It's mean! It's mean and it isn't fair!"

If she had been standing up, she would have likely stamped her foot. As she was on the sofa beside him, balanced on her bare knees, she slapped the sofa for emphasis.

As he looked at her, ready to throw a kindergarten tantrum over what she clearly felt was a real and obvious insult to her person, Grabiner could not help but say, "You really are too much. I honestly wish I had someone to tell, although I can't imagine anyone would actually believe me."

"Why is it so unbelievable?" Amoretta demanded passionately, her storm still up.

Grabiner laughed and admitted, "I suppose it's not, coming from you." He decided to attempt a peaceful concession, "All right," he said. "In the morning - "

"Not in the morning!" Amoretta denied. "Now!"

"You  _are_ greedy," Grabiner decided, leaning forward again. Then his mouth turned up at the corner in a decidedly superior smile. "Even if I let you run wild you wouldn't have the slightest idea of what to do," he challenged.

"You want to bet?" Amoretta asked, slapping her open palm against the sofa for a second time.

"Against you?" Grabiner let out snort. "I may not be particularly clever - as you have graciously noted - but I am clever enough to avoid that trap. If you bet it rained chocolate eggs, the Cadbury Company would be out of business. All right, all right," he relented at last. "Since you're so set on this educational experience, I'll let you have your chance, but I am telling you right now that if I get any indication at all that you're tiring I'm going to stop you immediately and see you in bed myself."

"That's a threat I'll accept," Amoretta said as she squirmed in delight and triumph.

"In bed to  _sleep_ ," Grabiner clarified sharply.

Amoretta clasped her hands innocently at her chest, tucking her chin down so she was looking up at him winsomely. "Why, what else would a bed be for?"

Satisfied that she understood the conditions, Grabiner calmly leaned back on the sofa and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Well, Lady Chatterley," he prompted dryly, "I'm waiting. Don't worry," he said with a shrug, "I won't do anything to stop you."

He counted on her to lose her nerve when put on the spot, but of course she did not. Amoretta had at least as much courage as the Light Brigade.

Since he was already out of his coat, that was one thing she didn't have to worry about. Amoretta decided to go about the problem [[making off with Grabiner's virtue and showing him what a supremely resourceful and grown up woman she was]] the same way she went about most every problem: she would investigate, and then go about things logically. Even if she only had some very vague notions about what she ought to do in this situation - gleaned from the sort of books young ladies are told not to read but always read anyway - she was certain she could rise to the occasion.

After all, she was his best student, even if he didn't always think so.

Logically speaking, the first step was getting his trousers down. Perhaps in less advanced circumstances she might have begun by kissing him like she meant it, but honestly she had already done quite a bit of that this evening. Besides, even her limited literary experience with the masculine condition left her certain that he needed no further encouragement when she tentatively slid her hand across his lap.

There was evidence, after all.

He didn't make much of a sound when she touched him. He was obviously set on denying her the satisfaction, probably due to a perverse desire to win a game he had made up for himself on the spot.

He didn't make much of a sound, but he did make a little noise. He exhaled quietly through his nose. It wasn't much of a noise to be sure, but she heard it, and as a result she looked remarkably  _smug_.

He grunted and deliberately looked away from her.

Well, if he was going to be that way, it simply let her concentrate on the task at hand.

After all, if he was going to be wicked, then she was going to be  _twice_ as wicked - with interest - just to even things out.

And so the plan to relieve Hieronymous Grabiner of the rest of his garments began.

First obstacle: suspenders.

He commonly wore suspenders,  _and_ a belt - which he had already taken off himself, before shrugging out of his coat - and she worked out that if she was going to get his trousers down, she was going to have to get his suspenders off of him. She wasn't sure he'd shrug them off if he asked her, so she decided to take matters into her own hands. Fortunately that didn't seem too tall an order as they fastened on with buttons.

She undid the buttons.

He was still feigning a lack of interest in her activities.

Now there was just getting his trousers themselves undone. As she began to work on that, he shifted slightly where he sat, but otherwise apparently paid her no attention.

"Buttons!" Amoretta cried again in surprise. "It's all buttons! Are you an amish wizard? Haven't witches ever heard of zippers?"

He did not dignify her question with a response, but that was all right, because she wasn't really listening for one. She had gotten all the buttons undone and had relocated herself to the ground, near his feet. She was by now tugging on his trousers.

"Come on, Hieronymous," she said as she tugged, leaning forward in anticipation, "You can't just sit there like a stone. You've got to help me a  _little_. You said you didn't think I'd have any idea, and obviously I have at least some idea - "

"All right, all right," he relented, shifting slightly to push down his own trousers until he was sitting on the waistband.

"And your underwear too!" she insisted, as if he might forget. "You didn't have to worry about that, since I took mine off for you."

He fixed her with a critical eye. "You are very obliging," he said deliberately, and then, seeing nothing else for it, he shifted again, and this time he was assisted in his divestment by her very enthusiastic hands.

Ridiculously, he flushed, and looked away.

Amoretta, for a moment distracted from these latest revelations by his obvious distress, leaned forward on his knees in concern.

"Hieronymous, you're embarrassed!" she realized in amazement. "Why are you embarrassed?" she asked, tilting her head slightly to the side. "I mean, you've already seen all of me."

"I'm a very private person," he answered shortly, and he would not look at her. His ears felt hot.

"I know," she agreed with the familiar smile of memory. "I told you so. Don't you remember? I said you were someone who was all buttoned up, so it was very exciting to see you  _un_ buttoned."

"Yes," he said. " _I remember._ "

"But you really don't need to be embarrassed," she insisted. "I mean, after all, don't people have to get accustomed to certain people seeing them naked? You know,  _certain people_ who might see other people naked, even  _completely_ accidentally. I mean, especially married people."

"Generally," he agreed tersely, only half following her strange, rambling explanation. He still would not look at her. At first he had been embarrassed about  _being seen_ , but now he was embarrassed about _being embarrassed_. He felt like an idiot.

"After all, being naked isn't anything to be ashamed of," she was saying. "I mean, you're born naked and you die naked, don't you - "

"Most people don't die naked, that I am aware of," Grabiner cut in against his will, as if calling an answer to a response at a church service. "If someone makes off with their clothes, it's usually after the corpse has cooled. Do you even think about the things that you say, or do they just sort of appear in your mouth like spontaneous miracles of absolute nonsense?"

"Of course I think about what I say," Amoretta insisted, drawing back, "I think about it quite a - Oh! Oh! Oh oh! Well, just look at it! How interesting!"

In drawing back from her earnest attempt to get him to relax, she had finally taken notice of that which she had previously disregarded.

Grabiner was at last completely startled out of his embarrassment by the thoughtful explorations made by two small, pale hands.

"I guess I'm just going to have to figure out which parts you want me to touch the most through trial and error," she observed.

And then she opened her hot little mouth.

Once she had, he completely lost the thread of why he'd been embarrassed in the first place.

Amoretta went about her investigations enthusiastically. What she lacked in sophisticated technique she certainly made up for with  _interest_ , or at least she hoped so. At the moment he didn't seem to be complaining.

It was the smell that was perhaps most compelling at first: musky and damp and private. Of course, it  _looked_ funny, or at the very least it looked  _unusual_. She had seen museums full of nudes before, and had consulted the relevant anatomical sections of the Encyclopedia Britannica as early as the first grade, but that had not really been adequate preparation for facing down the real thing.

Honestly, boys were  _peculiar_.

She was ultimately relieved she did not have to be one unless she wanted to.

As for the pertinent sexual organ, it was  _certainly_ something to become accustomed to.

She didn't want to tell him how funny it was, because she thought that this mightn't be very polite. After all, he'd offered no commentary on her own strangeness, and he would've had the authority of Gray's Anatomy to support his statements.

Besides, if she told him how peculiar she thought it was, she was certain he would tease her over it. She was a very capable grown up lady, and she would not be teased over such things.

She would have to go about things in the best way she knew how: patient investigation.

His penis was mostly very flushed and sanguine, the foreskin drawn back, a ring of touch-warm flesh like a collar on a neck. She could make another collar of flesh with her fingers and her thumb, sliding it down the length of the body and feeling the pressure of the blood that was confined inside of it captured in the circle of her fingers. Although it was generally very warm, with a rigidness that moved and gave with persuasion, his testicles were cool to the touch, soft and spongy, as delicate as lungs, deep with the color of deoxygenated blood.

When she slowly ran her thumb against the prominent artery that ran from the head to the root, it was almost like feeling silk velvet. The skin was a little pliable, almost elastic, but the flesh was firm when she squeezed it gently, and it seemed to respond to her attention of its own volition. Under her tongue it was smooth and slippery, jumping about so she had to catch it and hold it still. It was certainly the most fascinating penis she had ever seen, although admittedly she hadn't seen that many she might compare it to. Despite this slight gap in her knowledge base, she was sure this particular specimen had to be one of the most appealing in the entire world. She was loyal to a fault.

She was very involved in her investigations when he suddenly snapped, " _Watch your teeth,_ " with some distress.

"Did I hurt you?" Amoretta asked in sudden concern, worried that her lack of experience was resulting in more discomfort than pleasure for him.

"I'll live," he grunted shortly.

"Do you want me to stop?" she asked, deeply anxious.

" _No_ ," he answered pointedly, and Amoretta's fears were somewhat assuaged.

Although she tried to be very careful, very thoughtful and responsive, there is only so detached and clinical one can be when one is occupied in the occupation that occupied Amoretta, and she soon forgot to take careful note of what he liked and what he didn't like and mostly just did what she liked herself.

As for a response -

She got one.

It wasn't the first time that night he'd put his hands in her hair.

He caught hold of her head gently and guided her forward, and then she heard the air hiss through his teeth all at once. It was all very sticky and vivid, and she soon became lost in her sensations. She could feel her bare knees pressed against the chilly floor as she leaned forward, and the warmth of his body as she braced herself between his knees. He cupped her chin with his hand, and she opened her mouth to thoughtfully taste his thumb when it passed across her lips. He didn't complain about her teeth when she nibbled at the salty, dry flesh of his thumb, but he did pull her forward again with some urgency. The blood throbbed in her ears and as she closed her eyes, she felt like she was tumbling forward into the warm, dark, unknown future. Everything was thick and liquid and violent and beautiful.

At the end she felt his fingertips pressing against her skull very tightly, and then she was coughing and swallowing the best she could, rubbing at her mouth with the back of her hand. She moved languidly forward until she was lying limply draped over one of his knees, enjoying the endorphins that had flooded her brain. One of his hands was still in her hair, absently stroking her head.

They stayed that way for some time, listening to the faint sound of the rain coming down outside, muffled by the wards that protected them both from the outside world.

"That was awfully messy," she observed at last, still hanging off his leg.

"You are a messy person," he said with certainty, and then slowly began to set himself to rights, forcing her to retreat to the floor, where she sat on her bottom and studied him intently. "Are you all right?" he asked her seriously as he buttoned his trousers.

Amoretta shrugged very indolently. "That was very tiring!" she announced. "Nobody puts that in books, you know, how  _exhausting_ it is. I feel like I've just competed in a track meet, the four hundred meter hurdles or something. I could probably eat four cheeseburgers right now."

"What sort of books have you been reading?" Grabiner asked with suspicion as he moved forward to crouch next to her, building a brief diagnostic spell in the space between them.

"The kinds with naughty bits," Amoretta volunteered candidly, patiently waiting as he read the spell's diagnostic and was satisfied she wasn't near collapse. He cast a regenerative spell on her for good measure, because it had been a very active day for her.

"I cannot say that I'm surprised," he said as he stood. "That will make you sleepy, by the way, so I hope you don't plan on operating any heavy machinery."

"I don't," she admitted with amusement. "But you really ought to get me something to eat. I'm  _starving_."

"I'll see that you're fed, you ravenous little beast," he assured her.

With the promise of supper before her, Amoretta felt she could turn her attention to more present topics.

"Well?" she asked expectantly. "Did I win?"

Grabiner snorted. "In this case," he said levelly, "I believe that _I won,_ but all things being equal, I stand corrected. You had at least some  _small_ idea of what you ought to do."

"You are awful," Amoretta pouted. "You really ought to tell me how splendid and amazing and wonderful I am at a time like this."

"Very well," he said, picking up his coat, which he found abandoned over the arm of the sofa and pulling it on, "You are splendid and amazing and wonderful," he said, obediently counting off each compliment on his fingers.

"You could at least  _try_ to say it like you mean it," Amoretta complained, kicking her feet petulantly against the floor.

Grabiner turned around at that and regarded her very seriously. "You are warm and kind and impossibly giving," he said simply, and Amoretta didn't need Communion to hear the sincerity in his voice.

She turned very pink and her ears burned, but she was saved from much squirming, fidgeting embarrassment because Grabiner punctuated his statement by throwing her robe over her like it was a tablecloth.

"Put your robe on and we'll go upstairs," he said.

As she scrambled to do so, standing up to pull it on herself and sort it all out, she noticed that Grabiner was looking absently around the room.

"What is it?" she asked curiously, moving to put her hands on his arm.

"It's nothing," he said, shaking his head. "It's just - this isn't really how I had intended to spend the day."

At that she laughed, and feeling both exhausted and pleased, he laughed too.

* * *

After unlocking the door to the rest of the house and dispelling the layered wards he had placed on the workshop, Amoretta expected Grabiner to lead her quietly upstairs, but instead he motioned her close to him and pulled her up, so she was standing on his feet, and teleported them both into their upstairs bedroom. Amoretta had to admit, these were certainly the highlights of a witch's life.

Although normally disoriented by being swept up in someone else's teleportation, she took Grabiner's relatively easily, although whether this was because he was so practiced or because they had an easier time synchronizing themselves to one another due to the union of souls she could not say.

Once safely in their bedroom again, Grabiner tapped her lightly on the nose.

"You should bathe," he advised with a raised eyebrow. "Too much longer and you're going to begin emitting visible lines of odor."

"Oh ha ha," Amoretta returned, leaning forward. "Well, you don't exactly smell like a rose garden either."

"Wash yourself, Diana," he ordered. "In the meantime, I'll see about your dinner."

She stuck her tongue out at him but did as she was told. She enjoyed her time in the bath, playing in the sudsy foam she worked up from the soap, but she knew she oughtn't linger, not when there was still supper to be had. She was quick enough about it, and was soon fresh and clean in a pair of beribboned pajamas. She met him at the door to their bedroom as he prepared for his own bath.

"We aren't going down to dinner this evening," he advised. "Cord is bringing a tray up. Please be so kind as to not devour every scrap he brings before I finish in the shower," he leaned forward slightly for emphasis. "I would like to eat something tonight."

"I'll eat every bit and it serves you right!" Amoretta retorted. Then he bent to kiss her briefly and excused himself to the bathroom.

Amoretta sat in her little study and looked out at the rain while she waited for her supper (and for Grabiner to finish bathing).

There was one thing he had been very right about. She had a lot of things to consider now.

Cord arrived with their supper on a tray at around the same time Grabiner appeared back from the bath. If Cord had any opinions on the way they had occupied themselves that day he made no comments, and kept his expression polite and carefully neutral. Amoretta wondered if Tansy was furious that they'd missed dinner, and Cord admitted that she was.

"She said you're not to blame her if the food is awful tonight, since no food fit for humans to eat is meant to be kept warm for two hours at a stretch in an oven," Cord said wryly.

Amoretta laughed as she sat on the edge of the bed. "I'm sure it'll be fine, Cord. I used to eat cheese and crackers when I was hungry at this hour. This can't possibly be worse than dry saltines and individually wrapped cheese slices. Oh, don't tell her I said that," she hastened to add. "I'm not sure she'll take it as a compliment."

Cord agreed that he wouldn't rat Amoretta out, and then with well wishes for the evening, he excused himself.

"You needn't bother with us again this evening, Cord," Grabiner said. "When we're finished, I'll put the tray outside the door. The mistress has had a long day, and she'll be going to bed shortly after supper, and I'd rather not have her disturbed."

"As you like, sir," Cord said with a nod, and then he was gone.

Amoretta, still perched on the edge of the bed and busy eating a buttered roll said, "Are you sure you don't just want me all to yourself?"

"I already have you all to myself," Grabiner reminded as he sat down on a dressing stool to pick at the dinner that Tansy had sent up for them. "I meant what I said. You are going to bed after supper and you are going to sleep. That is the way of the world."

"All right, all right," she capitulated. She was fairly exhausted. The day had been filled with exhausting events.

She thought back over things.

"Hieronymous, did you really mean it when you said I could be a boy if I liked? It wouldn't matter at all?" she asked thoughtfully. She had a salad plate balanced on her knees.

Grabiner, who was sampling overly dry roast, looked up somewhat sharply. "Of course I meant it. I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't," He grimaced as he put a fork full of roast in his mouth and then shrugged. "Although considering the fact that you seem to believe men are 'smelly, belching, and hairy all over,' your words, not mine," he reminded her, "I can't imagine why you'd want to be one, but it is as I said," he waved her off lightly. "Be a boy if you like. If that's what satisfies you, then that's perfectly fine with me."

"Oh, but I'm sure it would cause a lot of trouble," Amoretta pointed out. "I couldn't be in Horse Hall anymore, for one thing."

"Probably not," Grabiner agreed, "Although the headmistress might make a special exception for you. She has done in the past, in particular circumstances."

"I'm not sure I'm really brave enough to be a Wolf, so I suppose I'd be a Toad," Amoretta ruminated as she munched on her salad.

"I don't doubt in the  _least_ that you're brave enough to be a Wolf," Grabiner said with a raised eyebrow, "But considering your personality, I'm sure the Toads would welcome you with open arms," he added, rolling his eyes.

"Oh!" Amoretta said suddenly, waving her fork at him. "I've just thought of something. What do they call a boy who's married to a baron-or-whatever-you-are?" she asked. "I doubt they call him Lady So-and-so, or do they?"

"Well, if his name was John Smith, they would call him 'Lord John' or more formally 'Lord Smith.' His husband who actually held the title in question would still be known by the holding - in my case that is 'Lord Halifax,'" Grabiner explained patiently. "Don't think this hasn't come up in the past because it obviously has, my dear. You are free to do as you like." He grimaced at the meat again. "This really is quite awful," he observed.

"That's why I'm not eating it," Amoretta said sympathetically. "And if I decided to be an 'E' instead of a 'He' or a 'She'?" she wondered.

"We'd get by well enough," Grabiner predicted. "You can't share your physical condition with anyone else, but nearly all witches accept gender as being fluid. If you choose to be an 'E' you will be hailed as an 'E,' although it may take some small amount of time for your friends to adjust."

Amoretta shook her head. "I really think I'm just going to remain a girl. It's all I really know how to be, after all."

"You know how to be yourself," Grabiner corrected seriously. "The only thing you'd really be changing is what you called yourself. I imagine given your predilection for lace and ribbons," he gestured pointedly at her frilly pajamas, "That even if you suddenly announced you were a young man, you will still wear skirts and kneesocks and blouses."

"Naturally," Amoretta agreed with a nod. "It's what I look best in."

"There you are," he delivered as he abandoned attempting the eat the meat. "Even if you were 'suddenly a boy' you wouldn't stop being Amoretta. You have an irrepressible personality. You can't help being yourself."

Amoretta smiled again affectionately. "You know," she said. "You really are amazing. All of this has been so hard, but you've just accepted it without blinking."

"I've had to accept so much about you that your gender doesn't register to me as an item of particular concern," he answered her dryly, and then shrugged, and his expression became more thoughtful. "I love you, and I could not change that if I tried - I did try quite desperately, and it did not work in the least. Loving you, I have no option but to accept you. I have no wish for you to be the person I imagine you to be. I want you to be the person that you are. That is the person that I love, however inconvenient that may be."

"You are a prince," Amoretta said with honest admiration.

Grabiner lost himself in an unexpected bout of coughing and pointedly looked away.

Amoretta was concerned he might have swallowed some of the overly dry roast the wrong way and was about to offer to fetch him a glass of water when his coughing at last subsided.

"Something I was wondering about," Amoretta asked seriously, after he had quite recovered. "Has our marriage been consummated now? Or do we really have to, you know," she flushed as she made some vague hand motions.

Grabiner rolled his eyes. "Yes, it's been consummated," he said. "You might say consummation is something like a placebo effect. So long as the parties involved have been in at least one sexual encounter and believe their marriage to have been consummated, then it has been consummated. The nature of the encounter doesn't matter in the least, otherwise some less common couples might have difficulty ever technically consummating their marriage. That belief, the mutual trust and acceptance, is what makes a marriage consummated."

"Well, that's very comforting," she said. "Otherwise it would all be very complicated, wouldn't it?"

He nodded briefly as he considered the asparagus on his plate. "It would be, and needlessly."

A new thought dawned on Amoretta and she looked supremely self-satisfied.

Grabiner looked at her with sudden suspicion. "Why do you suddenly look as if you've gotten away with murder?" he demanded.

"We've shattered the laws of the state of Vermont, haven't we?" Amoretta asked with the excitement of a budding criminal mastermind, wriggling in place with her delight.

"I believe that's a fair statement," Grabiner said gravely, but then his smile quirked up at the corner as a hint of  _amusement_ crept into his tone. "I suppose it's fortunate that we're not in Vermont."

Amoretta opened her mouth, and then she closed her mouth.

"Well, then it's a federal crime!" she said, and he shook his head.

"Ah ah ah, my enthusiastic little gun moll," he denied, shaking his head. "We haven't crossed state lines."

At this Amoretta laughed. "You've really thought of everything," she said. "I suppose Ellen's mind will be put at ease."

Grabiner's ears turned pink at the casual implication that Ellen Middleton might soon become party to the events of the day.

"It wasn't really my intention, but things simply turned out that way," Grabiner said brusquely, and Amoretta realized why he had suddenly become reticent.

"Oh, Hieronymous, I was only teasing. I'm not going to tell Ellen about it. It really is just between us," she said comfortingly. "It's just that I'm certain that she'll draw her own conclusions."

Grabiner snorted at that. "She always does," he admitted.

"Doesn't she?" Amoretta agreed with a smile, then her eyes dropped to the floor and she fidgeted in her seat slightly, squirming back and forth. She clearly had something on her mind. "Hieronymous," she began tentatively, "When you were - well, when I - before, before when you were _touching me_  - "

"Now who's embarrassed?" prompted Grabiner with narrowed eyes and a wry smile.

Amoretta flushed and bent her head, continuing to fidget and squirm. "Hieronymous, it's embarrassing," she lamented. "I'm just not, I'm not used to the idea yet."

"All right, all right," he relented. "I won't tease you over it. What exactly do you want to know?"

"How you knew how to - " she said shyly, "Well, I mean, I don't have anything at all, you said so yourself, and I just wondered about - "

"Ah, I see," Grabiner said with a brief nod. "Really, I was playing it by ear. I had a theory, and I was investigating that theory. There are accounts of great angels eating and drinking - sometimes to excess, although they do not need to eat and drink to survive. They eat and drink for their own pleasure. I postulated, therefore, that you might also experience such  _unnecessary_ pleasure with the proper stimulation. I am satisfied to say that I was correct in this case. As to exactly how it functions, if it's a mental reaction that stimulates a physical one, or vice versa, I can't really say. Observing that data wasn't exactly my primary concern at the time."

"Well, I'm glad it worked," Amoretta said with relief, letting out a breath she'd been holding back. "I'd have hated disappointing you."

The way she said it, full of honest concern, made him shake his head.

"You really are a strange little thing," he said, "As strange and beautiful as a tree that blooms out of season."

Amoretta flushed and stammered a mixed-up reply, and then spent some time studying the floor. She still really couldn't take straight compliments from him.

They finished their supper and Grabiner put the tray and the little folding table out in the hallway for Cord to retrieve. When he returned, he found that Amoretta had already scrambled into bed, and after fetching a book, he joined her.

She had no book this evening. She was either too tired or too overwhelmed to read. She simply laid on her pillow and watched him read while she thought about things. He glanced over at her from time to time, but she seemed very reticent, so he did not press her. She had quite a lot to think about and was probably appreciating the quiet.

The rain was still coming down hard outside. He had elected to leave it on during the night because sleeping with rain on the roof - even torrential rain - was soothing.

At last, Amoretta spoke up in a very small voice.

"I'm sorry," she said, and she sounded penitent, as if she felt she done considerable wrong to him.

Grabiner had no idea what part of their long day had left her feeling like she owed him an apology, but wasn't surprised that she was feeling apprehensive.

"You've nothing to be sorry for," he insisted levelly, turning his eyes so he could study her face.

She looked away.

"I can't have children, can I?" she asked quietly.

That took Grabiner by surprise, because of all the things she might have been worrying over, babies were among the last things he might have considered.

"You cannot," he agreed, then observed, "You really have been thinking ahead, haven't you? Sometimes I don't believe you have any concept of the week-after-next - "

"Hieronymous, it isn't funny," Amoretta said, retreating entirely under the blankets. She was silent for a moment, and then she said, "I wanted to have a family. Just a little family. I wanted to have a family with you."

Grabiner patiently turned the blankets down to expose his wife, who had curled up in a little ball.

"Amoretta, we do have a family," he said seriously, gathering the little ball of Amoretta against him and smoothing her hair. "It's you and it's me. I'm not concerned about anything beyond that."

"But I wanted to see your children," Amoretta confessed, sniffling. "I wanted to love them, and I wanted them to love you. I'm sure you'd be a wonderful father."

_Not likely,_ Grabiner thought bitterly, but that was not a thought he could share with Amoretta. Not here. Not now.

"That's very flattering," Grabiner said honestly as he attempted to untangle the ball of uncertainties that was the present form of his wife. "Amoretta it's beautiful that you want such a thing, but not everything we want works out in the way we intend it to. We don't have access to a paradise of happy endings, where everything turns out conveniently. What we do have is this, now." He had finally managed to get her to look him in the face and he wiped the tears away from the corners of her eyes with his thumb. "If in the future you'd still like to have children, then we'll consider adoption. Honestly," he said seriously before mussing her hair. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

Amoretta smiled weakly at that and clung hard onto his arm.

"I really do love you horrendously," she confessed.

"Good," he said deliberately, then kissed her on the forehead and released her.

She stayed very close to him, her head pillowed against his shoulder.

When she next spoke it was absent, as if she was thinking over many difficult things.

"So is our love affair paraphilic?" Amoretta wondered aloud. "It certainly doesn't seem normal."

Grabiner didn't look up from his book as he snorted. "Undoubtedly," he said, then he scoffed. "Love affair. How overly dramatic."

"Would you rather I call it 'the tango of our twined hearts?'" Amoretta asked crisply and Grabiner mimed being physically injured by her words before shaking his head.

"I'd rather you not call it anything silly and absurd," he denied. "If you must call it something, call it our involvement."

Amoretta shrugged, and then thought about it.

"If it's paraphilic, does that mean it's wrong? It doesn't seem wrong," Amoretta said hesitantly.

"Of course it doesn't," Grabiner answered evenly. "It's ours. It belongs to us. If it didn't suit us, why would we bother having it?"

"But then, what does that even mean, paraphilia?" Amoretta asked in confusion.

"It means that some people will not understand us or accept us. When the number of people who reject something is in the majority, that is when such a behavior becomes aberrant," Grabiner said. "It really has nothing to do with the behavior itself. It has to do with whether people are willing to accept it based on the social codes of the day."

"Will people accept us?" Amoretta wondered quietly.

"All of us?" Grabiner asked. He didn't ponder her question very long before shaking his head. "Of course not, but people don't accept all of anyone. The trick is, to pretend to be normal. It's nothing to do with them at any rate. That's why we hide the parts of ourselves that are most objectionable to others. That's part of being human."

"But I'm not human," Amoretta protested weakly. "You said so."

"You're human enough," Grabiner said with a shrug. "You're probably the best human being I know, if that gives you any comfort."

Amoretta was silent for a few moments, and then at last said, "I'm glad I don't have to hide any of the parts of myself from you."

Grabiner glanced over his book at her briefly and smiled, that small, private smile that he gave only to her.

"That," he said seriously, "Is my privilege. I'm the only one who fathoms the depths of your heart."

She smiled at that and agreed, and then after much thought on many of the new and complicated revelations she had faced that day, Amoretta at last went to sleep.


	5. Four: It's All Up in the Air and We Stand Still

The events of the previous day having been quite exhausting, Amoretta slept long and well, although she woke relatively early, likely due to the fact that she had been sound asleep by nine o'clock the evening previous. Grabiner was still sleeping when she popped up like a new spring daisy, feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the challenges of this brand new morning. He was sleeping with his back to her, the blankets pulled up so far that only his shoulders and the back of his dark head were visible. It was dim in the closed cabinet bed, but not entirely dark. As she sat up, she could see how his thick hair curled against his cheek. She wanted to brush it away from his forehead, to feel it in between her fingers, silky, rough, and tangled. That was her privilege now, being that she was both his de jure and de facto wife, but she didn't, despite how much she wanted to. She knew that if she began prodding him all over for her own pleasure that she would inevitably wake him up, and she wanted to let him sleep.

She didn't want to wake him because she knew the day before had been a gauntlet for him, both emotionally and physically, and he obviously needed rest. It was good to see him sleeping now, relaxed and unguarded. He rarely spared himself the luxury of adequate sleep even now in this warm little bed, hidden away from the world. He seemed determined as always to cut time out of nothing, to subtract so many hours from the scant schedule of his sleep that he somehow, through witchcraft, or other dubious occult practices, ended up with a marginally positive value to devote to the impossible number of things he seemed intent on balancing at any given time, like a pyramid of teacups on the back of a prancing camel.

As was his habit and as well as familiar shortcoming, Grabiner had been carrying a great deal on his own back, struggling alone with difficulties he was unsure of how to resolve, difficulties that they ought to have borne together. Amoretta was a very sensitive person, and although she was in love with his faults as much as with the rest of him, she was neither blind to them nor willfully ignorant of them. It was impossible for her not to realize that he had kept things back from her, that he had kept his own counsel, even though at least  _some_ of his troubles and secrets had concerned her very own self. He was resolutely stubborn in his desire to protect her from the entire world, and that meant that there were times when he erred and chose to protect her from the truth, as if that might somehow spare her heart.

The unimpeachable character of his intentions was not in question at all - not to her certainly - although his desire to shield her from the truth for any amount of time was misguided at best.

Still, he had told her all that he knew once he had become certain of things, and given the awkwardness of the situation, she wasn't sure she could really blame him for not coming out with the information earlier.

 _After all, what could he have really said?_  she thought as she looked down at the dark circles under his eyes, like someone had left thumbprints on his face in charcoal. She could build imaginary scenarios for herself, and none of them ended very gracefully. ' _I just thought you ought to know that I don't really think you've got lady parts. Also, you aren't a exactly a human being, and by 'not exactly' I mean 'not at all.' I know it's splitting hairs, but I'm afraid it's true. Sorry about that. Know it's a shock and all. Seems like you're some sort of angel thing instead, four extra ribs, ruler of the sixth sephira, all that. I might need some sort of exotic pet license to keep you. I better look into that. Have to dash, you understand.'_

She couldn't really see an easy way to break such information, particularly when he wasn't entirely sure of it himself. It was not the sort of thing one would want to suggest to one's wife unless one were very confident of the evidence. He had done his best, she thought, the best that he knew how to do. She couldn't see any way around it, other than the way he'd taken. He tried to carry too much on his own, he felt his responsibilities heavily, but this was not a shocking revelation. He was who he was. He made no secret of it. She loved that Hieronymous Grabiner. Her heart was full of him.

And no matter now brusque and curt he could be to all the other people under the warm sun, when it mattered, he was always gentle and thoughtful. He was honest and genuine, and even if he did not always have the greatest faith in his faculties of kindness and patience, she did. He had once called himself a poor source of comfort, but he was the only one she ever wanted. It didn't matter at all to her that it wasn't perfect, that he didn't abide by an ironclad set of carefully enumerated rules of mannered, polite, sensible conduct.

 _How very uninteresting it would be if he did,_ she thought,  _If we both did._

He wasn't always right, but he was always  _trying_ , and that sort of uncertainty usually turned out much better than certainty, in her experience. It was better to admit to knowing nothing than to profess that one already had possession of the absolute truth, particularly when one demonstrably  _did not._

Neither she nor Grabiner were all that good at following the rules, at following a set path, an easy path. This was something she felt in her heart even if he might have denied it.

They both made their own way, even when that way was difficult. They did the best they could, given the circumstances, and sometimes that turned out well, but sometimes it turned out less well and they ended up hurting one another inadvertently.

Unbidden, her thoughts drifted to the porcelain violets that had been stowed away on her shelf.

There rarely were any easy answers.

That didn't mean things were bad. It just meant things were complicated.

As Amoretta conjured a small witchlight over her fingertips so that she could see to untie the ribbon that bound them, she was caught off guard by how vulnerable Grabiner looked when he was asleep. The lines of care and worry on his face were relaxed. When he was asleep, he did not frown, and his brow was unwrinkled, although the familiar lines of his full emotional gamut, usually so carefully restrained, were still faintly visible on his forehead and around his eyes and mouth. She could hear him breathing deeply, a sure sign that his sleep was undisturbed.

She let her fingertips rest very briefly over his, and then she finished untying the two of them.

There were a couple of spells in her repertoire that were invaluable at times like these. She was glad she had taken the extra time to learn these spells that were such an asset to  _sneaking_. After all, one never knew when such a talent would come in useful, or otherwise be downright  _necessary_. There was a spell to make her light-footed, and another to muffle her personal sound. Then she gingerly slipped over him, pushing open the door of the cabinet bed and then closing it behind her, so that he could go on sleeping.

The morning was pale and a little cool in their bedroom, likely due to the fact that it was still stirring up a tempest outside the misty window panes. Despite the chill, Amoretta felt full of energy and life. She couldn't stay in bed. If she tried to lie abed, she would just wake Grabiner up with her fidgeting. Best to remove herself entirely if she hoped to let him sleep.

She was resolved to be productive and get the most out of her early morning zeal, and the best way to be productive in her current situation of being left to do utterly as she pleased was to have a long, hot bath. This was one of the fundamental truths of her existence.

Conveniently, it would also take her out of the bedroom, so there would be less of a chance of her waking Grabiner accidentally.

She gathered up her bath robe and quietly let herself out of the room.

She met Cord in the hallway, on his way downstairs, and asked if the morning's breakfast might be sent up, as yesterday's dinner had been.

Cord had touched his ear and relayed the information, nodding once as he confirmed the orders.

Amoretta bit her lip as he finished speaking, asking in a stage whisper, "Tansy didn't like that either, did she?"

"She didn't," Cord agreed with a laugh, "She'll be in a temper today, that's for sure."

"He's just sleeping very well," Amoretta shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. "I don't want to wake him until it's absolutely necessary."

Cord shook his head briefly. "You don't need to explain anything, or apologize," Cord said. "What you've asked is very reasonable. Tansy just likes having things  _her way_."

Amoretta nodded thoughtfully.

"When would you like breakfast?" Cord asked with a reassuring smile.

Amoretta asked the time, was given it, and then elected for their breakfast to be delivered in an hour and a half. She didn't imagine Grabiner would sleep past ten in the morning. She had rarely known him to stay in bed past eight thirty, even on a holiday, which was why she was so intent on letting him sleep in on this particular morning.

Cord nodded again, then touched his ear and grimaced.

"If you'll excuse me, ma'am," he said, "I'm being summoned."

Amoretta watched him bustle off down the stairs, and then crossed the hall into the bathroom.

Although she had bathed the evening previous, it had been a rushed affair, as she hurried to wash herself before their tragic reheated dinner arrived. This morning she had the luxury of time, so she drew a hot bath, added nearly half a jar of bubbles, and enjoyed herself immensely, soaking until she had turned into a little prune. Then she scrubbed herself thoroughly, cleaned and changed the dressings on her shoulder, and took the time to carefully wash and squeeze out her hair.

She had just finished squeezing her hair out while sitting on the lip of the tub when she stood to put a part in it at the mirror, and let out an unexpected shriek.

There, on the side of her neck - as plain as the sun in the sky -  _was the mulberry dark stain of a bruise_.

Actually, there were several, although some were admittedly more prominent than others.

She counted four different marks and then resolved to stop counting before she died of embarrassment.

She had stood idly by in the hallway, chatting to Cord, while at least  _two_ of these marks were visible.

She was going to die.

That was it. She was going to die of embarrassment. There was nothing else for it: only a quick and gruesome death, or otherwise the painfully prolonged existence of hiding in a hole for the rest of her natural life.

She was going to die.

Struggling into her robe, Amoretta fled from the bathroom back to the bedroom, entertaining horrified visions of meeting absolutely everyone she knew on the way there.

Of course, she didn't see anyone on the way, although she did find herself with an audience when she threw herself through the bedroom door, looking as hunted as a gazelle on the serengeti. She secured the door behind her somewhat forcefully, and then leaned against it, panting, as if she feared who might soon come curiously knocking. After all, the material evidence of their past day's occupation was so plain to see on her body that she might as well be an exhibition at the county fair.

Grabiner was already awake, and the doors of the cabinet bed had been propped open. He was sitting up in bed, a folded newspaper in his lap, and a cup of tea on the bedside table. His mouth was quirked up at one side, as if he was enjoying her performance.

"Hieronymous," she sputtered, "Did you know - I mean, that  _I_ \- that  _you_ \- that there's - _there are passion marks all over me,_ " Amoretta nearly shrieked.

"Yes, I know," Grabiner answered easily with a shrug, "And now I suppose the whole house knows as well."

"Well, I already met Cord in the hallway, and I have to say, I really think this one is pretty much  _impossible to miss_ ," she said, pointing at a most chief of offenders. "Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded, hopping in place in a dance of pure mortification.

"I suppose I wanted to let you make that discovery on your own," Grabiner said idly, and his self-satisfaction was nearly suffocating.

"What am I going to do?" she lamented. "These things take  _days_ to fade, don't they? Maybe I'll hide in my room until they're gone. I absolutely  _cannot_ see anyone - "

"Honestly, you change as often as the weather," Grabiner observed with amusement. "Where is the fearless little vixen who tugged down my trousers yesterday evening?"

Amoretta went pink. "Well, this is different!" she insisted. "That was private. That was between us. But now everyone is going to see - "

"Are you ashamed to have been with me?" Grabiner asked her critically, and his question was cool and direct.

She flushed more deeply, this time in aggravation, "Of course not!" she stormed, stamping her foot. "But I didn't think you wanted to advertise the information to absolutely everyone who  _may_ or  _may not_ be interested in the news." She finally found a mark for her accusation as she threw out a slim finger at him. "You weren't too keen on me sharing the details with Ellen, were you?"

Grabiner rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "You are an awful little thing," he said categorically, "But I suppose I oughtn't tease you. Come here," he waved her towards him.

Somewhat reluctantly, she crossed the space toward him and he pulled her to sit on the edge of the bed.

"I suppose it's never occurred to you that you are a witch," he remarked dryly as he began the incantation to a short spell.

It was green magic, and Amoretta soon felt the brief touch of a healing spell against her neck as he daubed at her skin with his thumb. He tilted her face up as the spell wound down, and Amoretta found herself kissed for the first time that morning.

It was a slow kiss, thoughtful, expectant, and in no hurry.

When the kiss broke, he leaned back against the pillows behind himself and waved her forward.

"Now that that horrible crisis has been averted, come back to bed," he suggested.

Amoretta let her hands flutter over her neck, as if she might tell by touch if the marks had totally vanished.

"Are they really gone?" she asked with a mixture of amazement and concern. "You promise that you aren't teasing me again?"

"They're gone," Grabiner declared categorically. "You might've done that yourself with the simplest healing spell you know. You have to use much more complicated magic than that when you dress your shoulder," he said, tapping it lightly with a fore finger. "Now," he returned to his earlier assertion, "Come back to bed."

She flushed again.

"Well, I've already been up, and had a bath - " she began haltingly, as she fidgeted, squirming in place.

"Good," he cut her off. "I am pleased to know you have such impeccable hygiene. Now come back to bed."

"But breakfast will be here any minute - "

"Well, I don't think it's been fit with a self-destruct timer, so I'm sure it can wait," he pointed out, and then his brows drew together. "Amoretta, do you not want to be near me?"

Upset that he had drawn the wrong conclusion, she threw herself forward in distress, planting her hands on either side of his lap.

"No, no, it's not that," she hurried to explain, "It's just that I'm nervous. I'm just really,  _really_ nervous."

"It's all right," Grabiner said, affectionately mussing her hair. "I'm not exactly calm and confident myself," he confided seriously. "But you don't have to be terrified. I just want you here beside me. I was uneasy," his eyes shifted nervously toward the wall, "I was uneasy when I woke up and you weren't here. It made me worry - I don't even have any idea what I was worried about. It wasn't a rational fear. I was just afraid you had gone."

"I won't go anywhere," Amoretta insisted earnestly, and this earned her one of his quiet smiles.

Reassured, Amoretta scrambled over him and prepared to squirm back under the blankets. As she busily turned them back, she felt a thoughtful hand cupping her backside, and turned to look at him in astonishment.

"Did you just - " she sputtered.

"Yes," he admitted calmly, "I did."

"Well, I never!" she said indignantly.

"You never what?" he asked her sardonically, giving her bottom a final fond pat before withdrawing his hand.

"I never imagined - " she continued, her cheeks rosy.

"I'm sure you imagined  _better_ ," Grabiner said idly. "I have a great deal of confidence in your imagination based on my own experience with it."

"Hieronymous, you are horrible," Amoretta declared, her cheeks still flushed. She bundled herself under the blankets as if to hide her tender flesh from physical inspection.

"You've known that from day one," he reminded her, leaning down to kiss the top of her head, which was the only bit of her she'd left exposed after retreating under the blankets.

At last relenting, Amoretta sidled up next to him under the blankets, but as she got comfortable it was Grabiner's turn to shriek.

"What have you been doing with your feet, soaking them in the arctic ocean?" he demanded.

"Well, I was out without my slippers," the pile of blankets who was Amoretta admitted sheepishly.

"All right," he grumbled, sitting up in bed again. "Give me your feet before touching you gives me frostbite."

Amoretta wriggled around in bed until she could put her feet in his lap, and he proceeded to rub them with his hands, working the warmth of a spell into them. Amoretta appreciated the attention, and although her feet were ticklish, he made her sit very still until he was finished.

"It worries me when you're as cold as the grave," he said.

"I don't like it very much either," she admitted, wrinkling her nose.

"There," he said, tweaking one of her pinkie toes. "You're all finished now. Try to keep your slippers on your feet when you go running around the house and perhaps they won't drop to absolute zero."

Amoretta nodded vaguely, although she was distracted, and therefore not really paying much attention to his suggestions.

She was looking through the fat sunday edition of the Quotidian Marvel with cursory interest, her finger trailing down the page as she concentrated on following the closely packed text. Although the lead article that dominated the front page of the sunday edition concerned former Soviet block nations joining the European Union, she didn't have to turn many pages until she found an article about the war in Syria. The president declared that the war was going well and operations were nearing completion. He also claimed that the free Syrian people had universally welcomed U.S. intervention in their armed conflict. The author of the piece was somewhat dubious about the enthusiastic optimism of the President, pointing out the realities of the conflict and the political instability of a nation that had just been invaded by a foreign superpower. The article ended on a pessimistic note.

Amoretta bit her lip.

"I'm not sure he knows what he's talking about," she said, her brows drawn together in confusion.

"The Marvel?" Grabiner asked idly, stretching his arms over his head. "It doesn't always. It's a fairly good newspaper, but it is a newspaper. Inevitably some of the articles are rubbish. The Marvel is probably the least biased American newspaper for foreign affairs, but if you really want a critical accounting of world news, you don't read an American paper in the first place."

Amoretta filed this information away for later consideration, but then shook her head. "No, I didn't mean the paper. I meant the president."

Grabiner rolled his eyes, "Are you honestly surprised that the man doesn't know what he's talking about?" He shrugged, "He couldn't pass a third grade spelling test and may well believe that the moon is made of green cheese. Of course, it really doesn't matter particularly if he knows what he's talking about. No man truly steers the ship of state and all that. Besides, I might remind you that he  _was_ the people's choice. He was elected by a popular referendum of ignorance. Naturally, the public got what they wanted. And the convenient thing about going to war somewhere or another is that now everyone who opposes the president on any subject is an unpatriotic traitor who doesn't love his country." Grabiner's distaste for the subject was readily apparent. "The jingoistic fervor already whipped up by this fabricated war is really quite disgusting. I often wonder how Americans can be so  _credulous_. In this country, patriotism seems like a communicable disease."

Amoretta's eyes dropped to the page again and she frowned.

"Fabricated?" she wondered aloud. "This war doesn't seem fabricated to me. Things seem to have been pretty bad before we intervened. I don't like war, but - "

"Of course things were bad," Grabiner said with a shrug. "Genocide, sectarian violence, the wholesale slaughter of civilians by military personnel - that all of this is happening there is indisputable, but you don't honestly believe that the United States got involved in this conflict because it was 'the right thing to do,' do you?" he asked her dubiously. When it became obvious that she was unsure how to respond, he laughed very dryly, "Darling, you  _are_ gullible," he said definitively. "No nation ever goes to war because of the pricking of its conscience. In this case, a distant war is a good distraction from repeated domestic gaffes and and foreign policy that is otherwise in shambles."

"That's a very cynical position," Amoretta said, troubled.

"It's a very realistic one," he answered. "I am doubtful of the motives of every individual who wields any modicum of power. They have no obligation to be honest about their intentions, and in fact, every incentive to be deceitful. There is one thing I am willing to accept about people in political office: when they do tell the truth, it is by coincidence rather than design. Consider this: we both understand that it is entirely impossible for the government of this country to intervene in every circumstance of human rights violations, in every circumstance of a corrupt, oppressive government that abuses its own citizens and suppresses them with violence, in every other situation in which military involvement might be 'morally just.' That is plain fact that I am sure even you are willing to admit. There is neither the will nor the manpower."

Amoretta nodded once, still troubled.

"It's also a question of intention and authority. We want to help those who are in need of help, yes?" he prompted.

Amoretta nodded again.

"And if we haven't been asked? Is it still the right thing to want to help someone?" he wondered aloud.

"If they're in trouble - " Amoretta began haltingly.

"Ah," Grabiner said, raising one finger, "And who decides that they're in trouble? You? You have that authority?" he asked with one raised eyebrow. "If so, you're taking a lot on yourself, Amoretta. Not everyone will be accepting of your charity. Not everyone will thank you for your efforts, and they may well be right in their attitudes. There is every chance that you, with an imperfect understanding of another's circumstances, will do more harm than good even in your honest attempts to help. You could make things worse."

"I don't care," Amoretta said resolutely and Grabiner could see her set her jaw. "I don't need anyone's permission to help someone. If they want to be angry about my help, then they can be angry at me after I've helped them. Besides," she shook her head, "There's always the chance that I could be wrong, that I'm making mistakes, but all I can do is the best that I can do. I think it's much better to try than to be afraid to try. If you're afraid, then nothing ever gets done, nothing ever changes. If no one does anything, then nothing can get better. It's worth the risk to act, even if acting might not always be for the best."

"For a pacifist, you certainly seem ready to fight anyone," Grabiner noted wryly, his mouth quirked up at one corner. But then he shook his head and became more serious again. "That's all well and good for you. You're one girl who obviously means well, if nothing else. But it's very different when considering the actions of a nation, the actions of a military put into the field by its nation. In this circumstance, help that was unasked-for has a very different meaning and very different ramifications. That is what I meant by saying that no country goes to war over the pricking of its conscience. As individuals our consciences are pricked, certainly, but only as individuals, not as nations. It is convenient for certain parties that there is civil unrest in Syria. That is no doubt one of the reasons the United States has entered into this conflict, but you'd be a silly little fool to imagine it is the only reason, or perhaps even the primary one. And please note that in this war, as in so many others, it will be the old and wealthy who wage it, and yet it will be the poor and young who fight it."

"You don't have much faith in the system," Amoretta said with a wistful smile.

Grabiner waved her off idly. "I have too much experience with it, and with those at the center of it, guiding its course," he answered.

"Your father! You're talking about your father!" Amoretta realized all at once with a start.

Amoretta had been slowly developing a personal understanding of Aloysius Grabiner's political position through the dozens of cordial notes she had been methodically writing for days. Perhaps that was why Grabiner had set her to do it in the first place. It was first hand experience: a practical education on what it meant to be a member of a family with prestige, money, and influence.

Grabiner frowned. "I am talking about my general experience with the world," he denied. "Moral narratives are often attached to war, and that's unsurprising. Most people need a reason before they're willing to kill other people, even soldiers," Grabiner said. "They are human, after all, just like everyone else. And then, once the war has been won, the winners construct a further moral framework for the conflict. But all of these things are inventions. No one goes to war imagining themselves a villain, although every narrative of war has villains as well as heroes. One may have just reasons for wishing to enter into a war, and a civilized man attempts to hold fast to his humanity by observing the rules of just warfare, but war itself is neither just, nor unjust. Despite the excitement of a brass band playing a catchy nationalistic marching tune and the romantic gleam of soldiers high stepping jauntily in uniform, war is ugly and horrifying. It is suffering and death for all involved. It is always suffering and death. Often, it is unavoidable."

Amoretta looked down at the page, struggling with her feelings, and Grabiner, realizing that the morning newspaper had upset her considerably, elected to distract her. She had a tender heart, and he wished for it to remain tender.

"It may amuse you to know that we are an item of interest on the society page," he remarked blandly as he sipped his tea.

This strange announcement pushed all of the uncertain, troubled thoughts out of Amoretta's mind and her eyebrows went up in surprise. She rapidly flipped through the paper until she came to the society section, then pulled the whole thing out, so she could scrutinize it closely.

At first Amoretta was at a loss, facing a sea of unfamiliar names, descriptions of parties, wedding and engagement announcements, and other news of New York witch society, but then Grabiner directed her eyes to a column entitled 'Continental News,' and skimming down it she ran upon a familiar name suddenly, and then she realized with a start that it was her own.

She was still not accustomed to associating the words 'Lady Halifax' with her own person.

"'Earlier this week the Court of Figs played host to the twenty-seventh Lord Halifax,'" Amoretta began reading aloud, "'Perhaps the most notable of the expatriate English aristocracy living abroad in the Free Nations. Never a stranger to the Court of Figs, he has been conducting a great deal of business in the city as of late, leading to speculation that the new Lady Halifax might soon make her debut in the city. She appeared on his arm last Monday, dressed to evoke the provincial charm of the Vermont countryside - '"

"That is a diplomatic way of indicating that you were dressed like a yokel," Grabiner broke in with dry amusement.

Amoretta made a face at him before continuing to read aloud, "'The two were observed in several notable establishments, including Loy's of Manhattan, where the young Lady Halifax is rumored to have purchased an entirely new wardrobe. Is it a maternity wardrobe? Only time will tell if the well-respected family is ready to welcome a little stranger - ' Was someone following us around?" Amoretta demanded indignantly.

"Probably," Grabiner admitted mildly.

"Well, what's it any business of anyone but myself how I dress, or if we are expecting a - what do they call it - " Amoretta fumed as her eyes dropped to the page, " _A little stranger_."

"By marriage, you have become a personality of interest to the public, whether you want the position or not," Grabiner said with a shrug. "I have never been concerned with what the bourgeois writers of the society page have to say about me, and they have given up hope that I will some day turn over a new leaf and become appropriately fashionable. The most they can hope for from me is either scandal or notoriety, and I delivered both to them when I unexpectedly married you. You, my dear, are fresh meat for the hungry press. They will watch what you eat, what you wear, to whom you speak, and take note of where you shop. That is what it means to have a very old and very influential name. At the very least, it won't be all that long before they realize that the reason I married you was not due to the imminent arrival of 'a little stranger,'" he finished with amusement.

Amoretta frowned, but kept reading, "'We hope the best for this unconventional union whose future at the moment seems uncertain, as the two were witnessed publically quarrelling - '"

Amoretta had turned mauve while reading this last part, and she threw the paper down in disgust.

"That's just awful," she said categorically. "We weren't quarrelling. We were having an ideological disagreement - "

"Which some people would call quarrelling," Grabiner interjected evenly.

Amoretta's anger broke down all at once and she let out a great sigh. "It is all very complicated, isn't it? Being Lady Halifax. It was the first time I'd been out anywhere with you, and already they were watching us. I'm going to have to be really careful of what I say and do from now on, aren't I?"

Grabiner shrugged philosophically. "I imagine you'll strike your own balance. I wouldn't worry about it overly much. As you might have noticed, although the coverage of our visit might have been a bit catty, it was not outright rude, slanderous, or derogatory. You will find most people to be polite and generous simply because of your position. I'd advise you not to be concerned with what the society page says about you. You obviously cannot be what you're not, so there's no reason to concern yourself with trying. Be yourself, and don't be troubled by what other people think of you. You don't have to prove yourself worthy of being Lady Halifax," he said dismissively, "You  _are_ Lady Halifax."

Amoretta ruminated on his advice pensively, then said, "You know, I suppose the thing that surprises me most is that no one broke in on us at the academy, since we're such an item of interest. I'm glad that they didn't," she said, and her relief was genuine even as her brow wrinkled, "But I am surprised that no one thought to."

"Even newspaper people have some standards," Grabiner said with a grim smile, and then he chuckled briefly. "Besides, the academy is verboten territory for the press. No newspaper writer would dare cross into the domain of Petunia Potsdam without her permission. I don't believe I really need to tell you that she is a  _formidable foe_."

"Is that one of the reasons you've been hiding at the academy like a hermit?" Amoretta teased. "So the press can't get at you?"

Grabiner's mouth had become a thin line, and although he gave the brief semblance of a smile at her joke, it did not touch his eyes. She had put her hand on the truth accidentally.

"Yes," he said very shortly.

Amoretta flushed and looked down at the disheveled blankets. "Hieronymous, I didn't mean - " she hastened to apologize, but he was already shaking his head.

"It's all right," he said gently, laying his hand against her arm. "I know you didn't mean anything by it, and it is true. I am not particularly fond of the press," he shrugged. "If the headmistress can keep them off of me, then that's at least one thing she's good for."

"You're so generous with your compliments," Amoretta giggled, her earlier worries eased.

"It isn't advisable to praise that woman too loudly," Grabiner said, snapping his fingers smartly. "She is already too well aware of her own merits."

"She has been good to the both of us, though," Amoretta said honestly, not wishing to seem ungrateful to the headmistress, absent from their company though she was.

"Yes," Grabiner admitted simply, as he got out of bed to get dressed, "She has."

* * *

And so, after that tumultuous day of rest, Amoretta was left wondering if things would continue on, much as they had before, with her silently pushing around the pieces to a half put-together jigsaw puzzle while he remained behind a locked and warded door, keeping his unspoken self safe and secret.

Fortunately, despite the fears of her lonely heart, it did not happen in quite that way.

He did disappear into his workshop after breakfast, without much more than a word to her. Amoretta was disappointed to be left alone again, and she could not help but show it, although she tried very hard not to. She was trying to hold fast, to keep a stiff upper lip. She didn't want to be thought of as a moping child. She wanted to be capable and confident. She wanted to be a grown up, a partner worthy of being relied upon.

She wanted to be strong, strong enough to wait for him, until he was ready to share what it is that he was keeping back, even now.

But she was not as strong as she wanted to be, not as strong as wish on a star.

She was her weak, sad, thoroughly human self.

In fact, it was hard to imagine feeling more dreadfully human, more dreadfully small, more dreadfully inadequate than she did that morning.

Lost in thought, she paced aimless circles around the downstairs, deeply pensive. Although Cord approached her briefly for directions once or twice, and tried his best to give her a little cheer, he rightly sensed that she did not want his company, that she was not in the mood for cheering, and left her to her own devices. At last she curled up on the sofa and pillowed her chin on the backrest, staring out the window at the clear, blue,  _picturesque_ sky, and wishing for the rain that Grabiner had dismissed after breakfast.

But all days cannot be quiet, private, rainy days. The sun must eventually come out, even if one would prefer the intimacy of stormy weather.

As she was resignedly reflecting on this truth, and wondering when the next rain squall might occur, something quite marvellous happened.

She laid bonelessly against the back of the sofa, tapping her fingers listlessly against it, totally disregarding the bright, airy songs of the little birds in their trees. Out the window, the jewel-like flowers of the front garden were nodding their heads in the gentle late-spring breeze. Inside, Amoretta was wallowing in the rotten luck of fair weather. She was quite engrossed in wallowing when she was startled by a familiar sound.

Grabiner had cleared his throat.

She turned around like a figure skater on uncertain ice and found that Grabiner was standing behind her, wearing his regular working robes, his grimoire tucked under his arm. He raised one eyebrow, although otherwise kept his face perfectly schooled.

"Miss Suzerain," he said very evenly, "I don't know if you are aware of the time, but it is half past eleven. You are late for class."

Amoretta stood straight up, her cheeks as hot as fire as she stammered, "No, no, I'm not I'm definitely not!" It was quite enough to send her into a natural panic-response at the threat of detention or demerits.

She was perfectly resigned, after all, to being punished when she had broken the rules or otherwise been naughty, but being accused of an unpremeditated and unintentional (and in fact unknown) breach of conduct was sure to send her squirming in discomfort. She counted on knowing ahead of time when she was guilty. It was the uncertainty that did her in.

It was all very weird, like one of the nightmares she had had in the early part of her freshman year, where she would inexplicably miss one of her classes because she simply forgot to go, and Grabiner would descend upon her with a fury and a cornucopia positively overflowing with detention. In those dreams he had been like the personification of incarceration in a toga: Lady Anti-Liberty; Lord Prison Sentence; the Duke of Demerits. Those dreams had been both thrilling and yet deeply, deeply upsetting. Ultimately, Amoretta was glad that the events of the spring had given her different things to worry about. She hadn't had such a dream in a very long time, so the fact that she now seemed to be actively living one was a little more than she could bear.

She glanced down at herself in confusion, and was relieved to find that she was neither wearing her pajamas, as she often was in one of the imminent doom dreams, nor her school robes. She was dressed quite ordinarily for a summer morning at the cottage. Looking wild-eyed around herself, she confirmed that she was in the downstairs great room of Revane Cottage, and that she had been quite finished with school for a couple of weeks. The man standing before her, looking completely put together in his drab robes, every hair in place, his boots gleaming dully against the stone floor, was certainly ready for a full day of lectures and practical work, and he was obviously also  _quite around the bend._

"Hieronymous," she stammered again, searching for any way to make sense of the situation, "It's Sunday. In the middle of May. I can't be late for class," she was surely hunted, struggling to build a defense, although at last she finished triumphantly, throwing her finger out to point squarely at his nose. " _There isn't any class_."

"Not at Iris Academy, perhaps," Grabiner granted with a thin, grim smile as he raised a hand to brush her accusation away, "But here, as of today, class is in session." He pulled a folded paper out of his grimoire and offered it to her.

She stood motionless, staring at the extended paper in a mixture of wariness and confusion.

Finally, she confessed, "I'm really afraid that it's a bad report card that you've been saving for me."

Grabiner snorted, and agreed, "I could certainly write a terrible one, if that were my intention, but you ought to recall that Iris Academy does not issue grades other than pass/fail."

"But you just said we're not at Iris Academy," Amoretta pointed out, still wary.

"Well, it isn't a poor report card, although lord knows you ought to have a sack of them by now," Grabiner had by now lost his patience and thrust the paper upon her.

"Advanced Material Circles, Hermetic Grammar, Lexicon, Field Exercises," Amoretta read aloud in astonishment after unfolding the paper, "Hieronymous, this is a class schedule!" she realized, her cheeks going darkly rose for a second time. There was only one professor listed on the strange, new schedule, and his name appeared again and again as primary instructor for every single class. Every word on this new schedule was written in the familiar loops of his idle, sprawling, languidly beautiful handwriting. The man in question was currently standing in front of her, looking exasperated.

"Yes," he said with brows drawn in a combination of confusion and amazement at her problem-solving abilities (or lack thereof). "It is a schedule. It is your schedule. You are late for class," he repeated.

"But I didn't even know I had class!" she protested, throwing her arms up, "I'm not ready or anything, and honestly, I don't know the first thing about advanced material circles - "

\- which was apparently the class she was tardy for at this particular moment -

She trailed off as she realized that Grabiner was completely unimpressed by her mass of unorganized protests. She panicked again and at last it exploded out of her, "Virginia was right! You  _are_ going to give me detention! A summer full of detention!"

He calmly closed the space between them and popped her lightly on the head with his grimoire. This halted her tirade, and she was appropriately chastised.

"It seems due to a clerical error, your schedule did not reach you in time for your first class," Grabiner said evenly, "And for this, the headmaster sends his sincerest regrets and apologies."

"Who's the headmaster?" Amoretta asked, her earlier distress replaced by an acute interest in authority.

Grabiner's cheeks colored faintly, and he was clearly perturbed at having been interrupted again, "That is also me," he said shortly. "In light of these extenuating circumstances, you will not be punished for being late to class on this particular day."

"Well, that's charitable," Amoretta remarked dryly, crossing her arms over her chest.

Grabiner turned grimly amused again, "But I do hope you understand, Miss, that in future, tardiness to any class will not be tolerated."

"What are you going to do, make me peel potatoes?" Amoretta demanded.

"You do  _not_ want to find out," Grabiner threatened ominously, so that Amoretta felt a delightful shiver run down her spine.

Now she was getting her feet again. Now she had some idea of how she ought to behave.

"Maybe I do," she teased, leaning forward slightly. "After all, last evening - "

Grabiner did not allow another word to come out of her red little mouth, and again popped her on the head with his grimoire.

"Young lady, you have been too familiar," Grabiner interjected crisply. "It is suggested that you do not sexually harass the faculty during school hours, or you will find yourself expelled from this institution," He continued dryly. "Now come to class," he said. "Come as you are. As for detention," he eyed her sidelong, "You could not possibly imagine how dreadfully, mind-numbingly boring I can make it for you. Don't challenge me, Amoretta," he warned her seriously, "You will find yourself defeated."

"Now you've been too familiar," she suggested in amusement, and then added for good measure, "Professor."

"Good," Grabiner said with a nod, and seemed satisfied. "Now, you've got it." He turned and motioned her to follow him. "Follow me. We've got a lot to do and less than four months to do it in."

"Yes, sir," Amoretta said snappily, but her salute was lost on Grabiner's back as he did not pause or turn to look at her, simply kept himself about business. It was as if he were preternaturally aware of her shenanigans even if he did not have his eyes on her, and had no time for them.

She was late for class, after all.

She hurried to follow him.

* * *

The 'classroom' that Grabiner led her to turned out to be his workshop. It was to be the space in which he taught all of the the subjects on her new schedule, with the exception of field exercises, which would be conducted outside, as a safety measure.

A battered student's desk had been set up in the center of the floor, pushed back a little to provide a teaching space.

It had not been there the day before.

She had gotten a reasonably good look at his workshop during the previous day's  _unexpected developments_. It had been the first time since her arrival at Revane that she had spent any length of time in the laboratory, which was his private sanctuary.

"Is that for me?" she asked, pointing at the desk, although it most certainly  _was_. Who else could it be for? She didn't think he intended to conduct a class for the benefit of imaginary seabirds and butterflies.

"Yes," Grabiner answered shortly, laying his grimoire down on his own desk before turning to consider her. "It may seem silly to you to go through all the trappings of having school: desks, a schedule, proper discipline, but I believe it will help the both of us to focus. During school hours, I must be a teacher. During school hours, you must be a student. Otherwise, I believe this enterprise will fail, and neither of us can really afford that." He shook his head briefly, as he moved to lean against the corner of his desk. "It is not that you are in need of remedial education. On the contrary, whatever I may have said in other circumstances, you leave little to be desired in terms of your acumen as a student. However," and here he closed his eyes as he meditated briefly, "However, due to our unique circumstances, and in fact because you are a gifted student, you must apply yourself diligently to what I intend to teach you over the next few months. You have lately been handling live fire without any idea of how dangerous it is." He affixed her with a very serious look. "I have no illusions that I might be able to convince you to leave off using dangerous magic entirely. You have the taste of it now. You know how it is done and what can be achieved as a result." He shook his head as if conceding a point, "And I have to admit that this knowledge may well be necessary in both our futures. It would be quite relieving if I could count on a future of peace and stability, where my greatest worry was what sort of silly thing I ought to get you for our wedding anniversary, but I am afraid that given the situation, such a future is not very likely. We have the devil to consider," he paused, and then added, "Among other things."

Amoretta gave him a weak smile and said, "Well, I've said this before, but it's pretty much impossible to guarantee the future in the best of circumstances. If we're in for storms, then we'll weather them. That's all that we can do, right?"

Grabiner smiled briefly in return and said, "I still believe your optimism is dangerous, but I cannot help but be grateful for it. You have a way of lighting up difficult situations."

Amoretta flushed and turned away, and suddenly found the workshop's floor very interesting.

Then Grabiner cleared his throat, and the tender affection that had been in his voice was gone as if it had never been there. He had entered teaching mode.

"Please, do be seated," he said shortly. "We've already lost the first third of this class period to dawdling and idle chatter."

Amoretta's face was still pink, and her cheeks were quite warm when she scrambled into her seat and folded her hands across her desk, trying her best to look attentive and ready to learn.

Grabiner nodded once, as if reasonably satisfied by her decorum, and then moved into the center of the room.

"I'm going to cast a schemata," he said, then looked at her steadily, "Which is?"

"A spell that stores information for later reproduction, usually text or a diagram, symbols, blueprints, sometimes art - "

"Very good," he said shortly, and then commenced casting the spell.

Within a few moments the diagram of a material circle five feet across was laid out in the center of the room, its lines gleaming with blue spelltext. After a moment, the glimmering subsided, and the circle remained, being projected by the schemata spell that hovered above it.

"What is this?" he asked, gesturing briefly to the circle in front of him, although he did not look at it himself, keeping his eyes instead on her.

"It's a material circle," Amoretta answered automatically. "I mean, I know that much." She tilted her head to the side. "It seems like it's got three different spell effects in it." She shook her head. "That's what it looks like to me at least. I'm really not very good with circles like these," she admitted.

"And yet you drew a material circle twenty feet in diameter during your final freshman examination," Grabiner pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest.

Amoretta flushed a little and ducked her head. "But that wasn't a circle like this, not a proper material circle. I didn't understand most of the words and symbols used to make up a circle like that so - "

"You just made up your own," Grabiner supplied, closing his eyes briefly.

"I used symbols that made sense to me. Sort of like a shorthand for the spell effects I know how to use," she agreed.

Calling it a shorthand was apt. Amoretta had drawn out a major circle to open the Spiral Gate in only a few minutes' time, despite her inexperience. Her weird little sidewalk chalk symbols were functioning accurately as spell effect representations. The work she had done to produce the strange scribbles was probably worthy of a master's thesis at the university in Reverie. She had made natural connections between lines and spells that ought to have taken months of research in a laboratory, and a great deal of trial and error.

It had been too difficult for her to understand, and so she had made it simpler for herself.

And she had no notion of what that really meant.

Sometimes being around Amoretta gave him a very familiar headache at the back of his skull.

" _Come on, Hiero, it's just easier this way, don't you see? Cut out that part. You don't need it. It's just this and this. Those're the important bits. If you'd just shut up for a minute and try it you'd see that I'm right."_

It was the same.

It was the same sort of absolutely ridiculous rubbish that he might have expected from -

He shook his head slightly and tried to focus.

It was May. The year was 2003 and he had a class to teach.

"But the circle was too powerful for you to fuel yourself, wasn't it?" Grabiner asked, although he knew the answer to the question already. A sixteen year old girl could never have hoped to fuel such a circle with her own power alone.

Amoretta nodded. "That's why I used ritual magic. I had to use my own blood as a catalyst, even though I know that's pretty dangerous. I hadn't really thought ahead enough to bring something with me to sacrifice instead," she looked a little green. "Besides, I don't know that I could."

Grabiner gritted his teeth and did his best to speak in a slow, measured fashion.

"It is binding it in your own blood that made the circle so dangerous, whatever failsafes you might have employed. If you had not successfully closed it, that spell would have consumed all of your mana, and with it, your life," he said. "Binding a circle in your own blood is an offensively stupid thing to do in order to pass an exam. You will never, ever do such a thing again unless our lives are under serious, present,  _active_ threat. Is that clear?"

Amoretta swallowed hard, and nodded silently.

Grabiner frowned and said, "There are times that call for desperate actions, but it is important to understand when such actions are necessary and when they are foolish and reckless. You are intelligent and capable, but it is clear to me that I must teach you restraint. Right now you're keen on taking such stupid risks because you understand very little about the world. If you  _can_ do something, you believe you must do it, regardless of the circumstances. I must train that out of you. Your spontaneity can be a virtue, one that cannot be bought at any price, but it must be tempered by sound judgement. The more you know and understand, the less likely you will be to act carelessly," he paused weightily, "Or such is my hope, at least."

"I'm sorry," Amoretta began shyly, "I guess you're right. I don't always think about whether I ought to do things. I just do them because I can. I really hate feeling helpless, like I can't do anything, like I just have to accept things the way they are."

"There are some things that you must learn to accept," Grabiner advised gently. "But you aren't helpless. Having a better sense of when to act won't destroy your agency, it will give you the wisdom to act at the most effective moment."

"You're right, like always," Amoretta said with a great sigh. "All right. I'm going to do my best."

Grabiner nodded once, satisfied, and then drew her attention back to the circle between them.

"Now," Grabiner prompted. "What are the the spell effects of this circle? If you cannot be certain, then make an educated guess."

"Well," Amoretta began slowly, biting her lip, "The big one is definitely some kind of teleportation effect. All those numbers and letters in that circle are location data. There's a lot of it. And I think the smallest process might be a failsafe. Something to keep matter from materializing inside a solid object. And I guess that last one is a protection spell?" she hazarded. "It seems awfully complicated though. I don't know what all those words mean."

"It's a protection spell," he agreed. "Although there are four spell effects in this circle, not three, as you identified. This part of the circle," he pointed to the wide other ring that Amoretta had tentatively declared to be a protection spell, "Is actually two different spell effects. If you look very closely you can see that they've been laid together in condensed format. One of those spell effects is a protection spell effect, and the other part is an atmospheric conjuration spell effect. This is a Hermetic teleportation circle. It is meant to teleport the persons or objects inside it to a particular, predetermined location, and to provide for their safe arrival at this location by providing a protective field, a guaranteed supply of clean, breathable air that is not dependent on local conditions, which may not be favorable, and a failsafe that will recalibrate arrival coordinates to prevent a phasing accident."

Grabiner paused to consider her, "But all in all, very good. For someone who has never attended a class on material circles, you have a very acceptable level of comprehension. You're not fluent, certainly," he admitted, "But if you really knew as little as you claimed, you wouldn't have been able to tell me the first thing about this circle. It would have simply been gibberish to you, as I expect it to be for every student who has not passed or at least  _attempted_ the junior colloquium on material circles. Material circle magic is very different from the magic that you have been taught up until this point. I will ask you again, and I want a honest answer. How did you come by your understanding of material circles?"

"I told you," Amoretta began haltingly. "After Professor Potsdam gave us our first lecture about the Otherworld, I became really interested in the Spiral Gate." She shrugged, "Well, I learned pretty quickly that the most common way that human witches open the Spiral Gate is with a material circle. I didn't know anything about them at all, so I borrowed what books I could from the library - the books that were in English, at least. There were a couple of texts in Latin that I had no idea what to do with, so I just left them on the shelf. I learned what I did from piecing together what I could understand from the books that were available, only I wasn't very good at it."

"And you had never seen this form of magic anywhere before you came to school at Iris Academy?" he demanded, watching her with intense scrutiny.

Amoretta blew her bangs up in exasperation. "I hadn't seen  _any_ kind of magic  _anywhere_  before I came to Iris Academy, except the wild magic that happened when my own magic woke up. I'm a wildseed. You know that."

"But you aren't a wildseed," Grabiner pointed out evenly. "We have already established that. Your father is an unlicensed wilder mage even if he is not a practicing wizard. It is possible you saw some magic as a child, even if you did not realize what it was." But here he waved her off briefly, "But that is beside the point. If you say that you had never experienced magic before you came to Iris Academy, I am more than willing to take you at your word. I just had to be certain."

"Why is it so important?" Amoretta asked curiously. "Witchborn children grow up in houses surrounded by magic, so it's not like it's hurtful, or anything - "

"That's not it," Grabiner interjected. "Yes, they do grow up around magic, which means they have a chance to observe it from the time they are very small, even if they do not have the capacity to cast or conjure magical effects themselves, which is why they generally have such an advantage over wildseed students when they start their formal magical education. They are already familiar with many diverse forms of magic just from having grown up in a magical household. That is why if you had been born in a witch-home, I would look less askance at the fact that you seem to have taught yourself the theory and the rudiments of practice of material circles  _in your spare time, with no mentoring,_   _over the course of a few months_. In that case, it might be possible that you had already been familiar with at least some of it. But that is not the case."

"I don't think it's really that special," Amoretta began awkwardly, squirming in her seat.

"It's as if you taught yourself calculus without having been taught simple arithmetic. It isn't impossible, certainly," he said with a shrug, "Other people have done similarly remarkable things, but it is just that: remarkable."

"But it isn't as if I can use them properly," Amoretta protested. "Besides, I did see  _someone_ using circles this year. I saw your Emperor's Circle in January, and then the circle you drew for the gimmal oath. I can only read circles a little, you know, sort of  _badly_. Because I can't draw them out, or even understand them very well, that's why I - "

"Invented a completely new way of writing," Grabiner finished dryly. "And yes, certainly the two circumstances when you observed material circles this year were the most suitable I can imagine for careful study. You were near death both times."

"When you put it that way, I think it sounds much more impressive than it really is," Amoretta said weakly. "If I were really clever, I would have understood it the way it was, and not had to flounder through it the way that I did."

"Shockingly, even a genius is quite capable of being an idiot," Grabiner said with a shrug.

"Are you telling me that you really think I'm some kind of genius?" Amoretta squeaked, covering her face with her hands and hunkering down in her desk.

"That remains to be seen," Grabiner answered evasively. "Most days I am dead certain that you are  _not anything of the kind_. What I am telling you is that you need to study. And so we will begin at the beginning. In educating you on material circles, I do not intend to teach you how to form Pentachromatic circles, as that is not an area where I can claim expertise. Instead, I have resolved to teach you the Hermetic method of material circle creation. You mentioned that you don't understand a number of the words on this material circle. Why do you think that is?"

"Well," Amoretta began hesitatingly, "I don't think they're in English."

"You are correct," Grabiner agreed, "They are not. They are words in Magisterium, the Emerald Tongue, the  _lingua franca_  of modern Hermetic magic, and in fact, many other forms of magic that either derive from or were influenced by the Roman tradition."

Amoretta's brows clouded. "I thought it was Latin," she said, and he gave her a wry smile as he rolled his eyes.

"Only because you don't know anything about Latin," he said. "Magisterium is about as close to Latin as Anglo-Saxon is to modern English. They are related," he admitted, "They're closer than say, Sanskrit and French, but to know one is not really that helpful in learning the other. Too many things are different. Besides, Magisterium is a mystery language. It's one of the four great arcane languages. It's not meant for regular communication, although it can be used for such in a tight situation, as there is nothing inherently magical about the words themselves. But it isn't really a use language, and it hasn't evolved as such."

"What do you mean it isn't a use language?" Amoretta asked in confusion, "People use it, don't they? It's written down in books, isn't it? What's a mystery language anyway?"

"I mean that it's a language meant for magic," Grabiner explained patiently, "Not for asking someone to buy milk and eggs, or writing a letter to your great aunt. It has sometimes been used for ciphering when there has been a great need for secrecy, but generally, it is not used even for the body of a magical text. Even the great Hermetic scholars use standard Latin for that. Magisterium is used for the spells, for magic itself. It's a mystery language because it's been spelled. There's a very powerful permanent enchantment on the entire language, every word of it. Only those of sufficiently powerful magical bloodlines can learn to read it, let alone make use of it. Otherwise, it does not permit itself to be read. Your eyes slip over the words. You can't grasp them in your mind."

Amoretta's brows had drawn together. "You might have mentioned this to me when I asked you to teach me Latin earlier in the year. You told me then that there wasn't any shortcut to tomes of hidden knowledge - "

"There isn't," Grabiner said flatly. "I stand by my assertion. Learning Magisterium will not make you into an archmage. It will put you on the same level as an English schoolboy. When I suggested earlier that we should begin by focusing on the fundamentals of grammar, I meant just that, and I am pleased to say that my efforts were not wholly in vain. Your English grammar is now at least vaguely passable, and the experience should stand you in good stead, both in spellcasting and in writing thank you notes," he grimaced. "At the time, I could not see a real reason for you to study either Latin or Magisterium, given your background and interests. You are a Pentachromatic witch." He glanced down briefly at the ring on his third finger. "But circumstances have changed, and so my appraisal of the situation has changed. I believe now that this is the best course of action."

Amoretta thought back to what he had said before and frowned a little. "Sufficiently powerful magical bloodlines," she repeated his words slowly, then wondered aloud, "Does that mean wildseeds can't learn it, just because they're wild?"

Grabiner shook his head. "They can learn Magisterium if their capacity is great enough."

When Amoretta tilted her head to the side again, waiting for an explanation, Grabiner glanced up at the ceiling briefly, as if chiding himself.

"There is so much you do have seem to have right on the tip of your tongue, I sometimes lose sight of the fact that you're a sixteen year old wildseed who has only finished one year of schooling," he admitted. "Very well. We'll have a general lecture on terminology before we continue. Capacity is the term witches use to denote the amount of personal mana a witch can store as part of their own person. You can think of it like a cup of mana inside yourself."

"Oh," Amoretta interrupted. "It's like MP."

"What?" Grabiner asked, nonplussed.

"Magic Points," Amoretta said, as if this made things completely clear. "If you play a game where you're a wizard, then the way they usually limit the spells you can cast is with Magic Points. MP is how it's abbreviated. It represents your mana pool. I never played many games growing up," she shook her head, "But when I was away at school I found out that they were really popular. There was a system in the common room. I liked the games where you could cast spells nearly as much as the ones where you took care of farm animals," she said with a smile.

"And that is what mundane schoolgirls do to amuse themselves?" asked, one eyebrow raised.

Amoretta shook her head. "Not only that," she said, "Magazines and cosmetics and books and movies and board games and lots of other stuff besides. Sometimes personality tests 'to find your perfect mate,' or the kind of fortunetelling you can do with playing cards. Once we had a seance, but we only summoned the dorm matron who sent us back to bed." He didn't seem to be very impressed by her accounting, so she continued on impishly, "And there's also rock music, swing dancing, the jitterbug, surfing, and heavy petting besides."

"It sounds like there ought to be a cautionary film about it," he remarked, then snapped his fingers to draw her attention back to the subject he was attempting to teach. "Very well," he said. "It certainly sounds as if this 'MP' is a suitable analogy. When you cast a spell, you cast from this cup of mana, your," he paused, and then shrugged, "'MP' and mana inside it is depleted. That is why you can only cast a certain number of spells before needing to rest and let your capacity refill. The single greatest amount of mana that you can drawn out of yourself at one time is called capacity flow, and that is what determines the magnitude and power of the spells that you can cast as a witch. Logically speaking, you cannot cast a spell that has a greater mana cost than what you carry in your capacity, in your 'MP.' A witch cannot spend more than she has. Similarly, even if she has enough in her capacity to cover the costs, she cannot cast the spell if her flow capacity is not high enough. If capacity is like a cup of mana inside yourself, think of flow capacity as a spoon that you can use to dip into the cup and draw out mana. Of course, witches can improve their capacity and flow capacity over time, with study, meditation, physical exercise, and practical magical training, but both of these values have a natural upper limit, beyond which it is not possible to extend them. This is what determines the general grade of a professional licensed wizard. When I say that Magisterium will only allow itself to be read by those with sufficiently powerful bloodlines, I mean that the enchantment on the language can sense an individual witch's potential capacity. If the witch's capacity isn't great enough, the language does not permit itself to be read or otherwise utilized by the witch."

Amoretta frowned, "But why do such a thing in the first place? Why make such an enchantment? I mean, you can't say that it's because someone wanted to keep powerful magic out of the hands of people who weren't qualified to use it, because you just said that if the witch's MP - I mean capacity or flow capacity or whatever - isn't great enough, she can't cast the spell anyway, whether or not she can read the language."

Grabiner smiled briefly as he shook his head, and it was a wistful smile, fond and tinged with sadness, "Don't think that this is the first time I've heard that argument," he said, and Amoretta felt a shiver run down her spine, because Violet was again in the room with them, silent, but watchful. Amoretta almost felt like turning around in her seat to scan the room for the girl who was fourteen years dead, but in the end she did not, as if afraid of what she might find if she did.

But Grabiner wasn't finished with his explanation.

"The answer is: as a method of social control, obviously," Grabiner said. "A mystery language like Magisterium at the center of the practice, study, and use of magic is the perfect way to enforce not only magocracy, but meritocratic magocracy, which is very, very appealing to accomplished witches of every stripe. The idea is that those who are worthy and capable, those who work hard, those who are talented and gifted, are destined to rise to the top in this sort of system. Of course, it goes without saying that this sort of system values a witch capable of learning Magisterium much more highly than it does a witch who is not capable of learning Magisterium. In fact, it generally does not define a witch as a witch at all, if her capacity is not great enough to learn a mystery language. Even if she does have the ability to learn low level magic of a fashion, cantrips, minor rituals, and so forth, she is still not thought of as a witch. She is a hedgewitch, and as such, she is generally not guaranteed the same rights in society as a full witch, a witch of the Art. You remember me mentioning dimidiums to you some time ago?" he asked.

Amoretta thought back to the night when her father had arrived at the May Day ball so unexpectedly, and she and Grabiner had walked together in the apple orchard.

"I remember," she said, "You said that Nurse and Button were both dimidiums. That a dimidium is a person who lives behind the velvet curtain but that isn't a witch."

Grabiner nodded. "Indeed," he said. "Hedgewitches occupy a spot in between dimidiums and actual witches and wizards in most more traditional witch societies, including the one of my birth. There, there is a strict demarcation between magic that employs an arcane language like Magisterium, and magic that employs a vulgar language - that is, a use language, like English or German or Portuguese. The practice of magic that has an arcane language at the core of its structure is called Art. The practice of magic that does not is called Craft. Historically, Art has been the province of scholars, the nobility, and the educated, while Craft has been the domain of the common people, the unwashed masses, as it were."

"Well then, is Pentachromatic magic the domain of the unwashed masses?" Amoretta demanded, clearly ready for a fight.

Grabiner chuckled, "Already very loyal to your style, I see." He shook his head. "Pentachromatic magic is a very young style. The headmistress is only the second master the style has had. The originator of this style was the founder of Iris Academy, Felicity Shaw."

"Her portrait is in the headmistress's office," Amoretta realized, and Grabiner nodded.

"Rather than being Art or Craft, Pentachromatic magic belongs along with a number of other modern schools in a category called Reformed Magic. At the core of Pentachromatic magic is a novel concept: the system of color division. You will find as I begin to teach you Hermetic magic that it will be very different than Pentachromatic magic. It's organized in very a different way. One of the great strengths of Pentachromatic magic is the breadth of spells that even a wayward student may acquire in only one year's schooling. One learns the spells of Pentachromatic magic as they have been divided into colors in an associative fashion. Because this is the framework of how Pentachromatic spells are taught, it is possible to learn many different useful spells in a short period of study, say one to two years. However, it can also create false roadblocks, as it has in your case. As you are unwilling to learn  _destructive_ evocation, there is no way for me to teach you  _constructive_ evocation through Pentachromatic magic, although this would be a relatively simple task in Hermetic magic. Let's say you weren't simply a conscientious objector," Grabiner said this last bit dryly, and Amoretta rolled her eyes in response, "Let's say that you simply could not grasp a unit of spells in your first year of black magic instruction. In Pentachromatic magic, you would have met your roadblock. It would be impossible for you to progress further in black magic. You might draw out a circle according to a book and cast a spell you couldn't otherwise, but you will not be able to add further black magic spells to your repertoire in this way."

"That's how you cast the diagnostic spell yesterday," Amoretta interjected, and again he nodded.

"According to the Pentachromatic paradigm, spells are taught in a unit, in associate fashion, with each unit of spells incorporating the building blocks of the next unit of spells," he said. "These units are piled on top of one another to form a tower, and that is the method of Pentachromatic spell progression. There are five towers, one representing each of the Pentachromatic colors. Because spells are taught in this associative fashion, because in Pentachromatic magic the spells  _are defined_ in this associative fashion, there is no way to get past a gap in knowledge. It is impossible. Even if there are other, later spells in black magic that it should theoretically be possible for you to learn and master, it is impossible for you to learn them. It cannot be done. It is against the paradigm. That's the essence of the Pentachromatic paradigm. It makes some things more easy to learn, but other things more difficult."

Amoretta frowned, thinking things over, "Do you think Hermetic magic is better than Pentachromatic magic? Is that why you're going to teach me Hermetic magic?"

Grabiner shook his head again. "Hermetic magic is more rigid than Pentachromatic magic, but it's also more extensible. Pentachromatic magic is more freeform, while at the same time being more limited. Pentachromatic magic is much more generally accessible than Hermetic magic, but there are fewer advanced resources available for Pentachromatics. Neither one is better than the other, they're simply different. At first, the things I teach you may seem stupid to you. They may seem redundant. You may be frustrated because you think you already know better and easier ways of doing the things I set before you. Hermetic magic is a much slower style than Pentachromatic magic. It may be some time before you come to see the value in what I intend to teach you. It will be hard work to catch you up on four years of schooling in a matter of months, even if you are clever and older than the standard beginner Hermetic. Honestly, I am teaching you Hermetic magic because I think it will benefit you. You are more than capable of learning two styles of magic simultaneously," he shrugged, "I think Rail practices a dozen different styles, depending on the circumstances, and I have personally seen the headmistress exhibit spells and skills from no less than seven different styles herself, a kind of Hermetic magic being among them."

Amoretta let out a sigh of relief that she didn't know she was holding in, then she said, "Aren't you taking for granted that I can learn to read Magisterium? I mean, I couldn't understand anything about those Hermetic circles at all. It was a whole lot of words I didn't know."

Grabiner frowned briefly, and then gestured to the circle which still lit up the floor between them.

"Please spell out the longest word in the innermost ring," he said.

Amoretta gave him a confused look, but when he keep his eyes on her intently, frowning, she shrugged and began spelling out the word. Halfway through it, Grabiner stopped her.

"It ought to be very clear to you that given what I've told you, you would not have been able to spell out that word if your capacity was not great enough to qualify you to learn Magisterium," he said shortly. "Honestly, given your abilities, the idea that you wouldn't be able to learn it is frankly preposterous. Yes, I took it for granted that you would be able to learn Magisterium, because it is the obvious assumption to make."

"Could everyone at Iris Academy learn the language? Magisterium, I mean," Amoretta asked curiously.

Grabiner shrugged. "As it is not the policy of Iris Academy to test its students before admission, I must assume that some of your classmates are incapable of learning the language. Iris Academy lets students naturally sort themselves out based on their practical performance. But students with below average capacity will never be capable of casting powerful spells, even if they pursue purely practical vocations after leaving school, and those who wish to pursue careers as scholars or theoreticians will eventually discover whether they can manage the various mystery languages in the course of their studies. It is inevitable. That is the world in which we live. That is why some students leave Iris Academy after two years, and others remain for all four years of study. It is the reason why some students go to work immediately upon leaving school and others seek out further instruction through apprenticeships. The capable sort themselves out from the incapable."

Amoretta bit her lip.

"I'm not sure that it's that simple," she said.

"It isn't simple," Grabiner agreed. "But it is imminently true."

* * *

As might be expected, from that point on, Amoretta's lessons continued to occur on a regular basis, according to the schedule Grabiner had provided. She had class four days a week, with days off in between, with the exception Monday-Sunday classes which came back to back.

True to his word, during school hours, Grabiner acted like a professor, and Amoretta was expected to act like a student. After school hours she was relieved to find that he reverted to his private self, the self that she had become familiar with over these long months. After their lessons were finished for the day, or on days when there were no lessons scheduled at all, he was willing to be her husband, otherwise, being her professor came first.

This was convenient when Amoretta was engaged with the work, since Grabiner was a capable teacher, but less convenient when she had a wild hare to skip classes altogether and engage in other more clandestine pursuits. Amoretta learned that it is very difficult to get one's boyfriend to skip class so forbidden pleasures may be explored when one's boyfriend is the teacher.

Still, although Grabiner wasn't keen on cancelling class to accommodate Amoretta's effervescent interest in the more carnal elements of the connubial state, which she found a little disappointing, she discovered that he was more that willing to make time in his schedule on off days, even if that sometimes kept him out of his laboratory, even if it sometimes kept him from working.

During the warm afternoons he coached her on her broom, or took her up flying with him on the battered, shabby broom that had been his from before the time she was born. They often ate lunch together on the back terrace, or on the sitting room's sofa. When they ate dinner at the long table, she sat at his right, rather than at the foot of the table.

It was comfortable and pleasurable and close. He smiled much more often than he had the previous September, or even the following March, and her heart was less hungry. He was not so afraid to touch her any more. He was not so afraid that his touch would dispel her, like she was a mirage, and he touched her often, in the regular, common way that people who care for one another touch each other. It was a way that he reminded himself of her permanence. Amoretta really didn't touch him any more often than she had done before, since she already had done quite a lot of touching, but she was relieved to find that he was more tolerant of her hands. He no longer pushed her off unless there was a good reason for it, although they were both sometimes awkward, and not everything that happened happened smoothly.

In terms of a problem solved and dealt with, it was splitting the difference, because the porcelain violets still remained in their little box in her study, Tansy still refused to recognize her as mistress of the house when Grabiner was not in earshot, and there were times when Grabiner's door remained closed and barred to her, and she was left to her own devices - but for the most part, Amoretta's earlier fears that she and Grabiner were drawing apart had receded into the corners of the room, where they remained generally ignored, like dust bunnies.

Before classes commenced the following Monday, Ellen turned up on the doorstep looking immaculate in her school robes, with a messenger bag slung over her shoulder that bulged as if she had crammed a full set of encyclopedias into it.

She had received a class list from Headmaster Hieronymous Grabiner and an invitation to attend the school he had organized for Amoretta's benefit at Revane, should her own schedule permit. Her own schedule had permitted, and Amoretta, who had not been informed about the possibility of a classmate, had been overjoyed. It warmed her heart to see the second battered student's desk moved into Grabiner's workshop.

Grabiner found that having Ellen Middleton as a student went a long way toward solving several problems at once. It gave Amoretta a nearly constant companion both on school days and free days, when Ellen inevitably came over to study, or to do homework. He didn't think it was good for her to be shut up in the house with no one to talk to other than servants, potted plants, or imaginary songbirds when he was detained by his other responsibilities. It also meant that he could continue to honor the promise he had made to his wife concerning Ellen's education. She absorbed information much more readily in a structured classroom environment than she might have if he had approached her and simply tried to offer advice and guidance. She did as well as Amoretta in all the exercises he set before them, and she really was a pleasure to teach, although she was certainly stubborn, and she could be both sanctimonious and self-righteous when riled. Although generally very well-behaved in classes, the moment classes finished, Ellen was more than willing to speak her mind. Fortunately, Amoretta was always on hand to be an intercessor in the arguments that inevitably followed. She had a way of resolving arguments between Grabiner and Ellen in such a way that neither party felt offended by whatever it was the other party had said to them, and both walked away with the perception that they had been the victor.

Of course, the other reason why Ellen's presence as a student at Revane was a relief to Grabiner was the simple fact that Amoretta was much less likely to be frisky during class when her mother-hen friend was present, and had a watchful eye on the both of them. This meant that Grabiner had to spend less time smartly rapping her on the head with his grimoire and could actually focus on educating the both of them.

The first day of class, before Ellen had come, Grabiner had had to thunk his wife on the head so many times in an attempt to get her to focus that he worried what little knowledge she had absorbed would be rattled out through her ears. Fortunately, following Miss Middleton's arrival, Amoretta was much better behaved.

Amoretta kept her word to Grabiner, and did not spill any giggling, girlish secrets about the state of their love life to buttoned-up Ellen Middleton, not the least because that would have likely sparked complicated questions. She was sure that if Ellen knew, she would want to seriously discuss birth control - magical and conventional - and Amoretta would have no way of explaining her situation without giving too much away. Besides, Amoretta really didn't want to share the news with anyone, not yet. It was a private thing, just between the two of them. Other people might surmise, but it really wasn't any business of theirs, she thought. Ellen might have her best interests at heart, and she was a good friend, but there were some things that Amoretta felt more comfortable keeping to herself.

But of course, as Amoretta predicted, Ellen  _did surmise_.

She didn't say anything, but it was impossible for her to miss all the small ways that their body language changed. Sometimes Grabiner's hand lingered on Amoretta's back longer than it needed to when he was correcting her seat on her broom, and sometimes Amoretta gleefully rummaged around in his pockets when he needed something from them and his hands were full. Whenever these, or other similarly intimate things happened in front of her, Ellen flushed and looked away, generally at the ground, until she thought the danger had passed. She felt absolutely ridiculous when she did this, as neither Grabiner nor Amoretta seemed particularly shy or strange about the way they treated one another, but she had no way to contain her embarrassment, and it always sang out of her, like a kettle coming to a boil.

She was nearly dying of anticipation to ask Amoretta what was going on between she and Grabiner.

But she didn't, because Amoretta had not volunteered this information.

She clearly did not want to talk to Ellen about it, and this was something Ellen found she had to accept as Amoretta's friend. She trusted her sometimes inscrutable roommate to come to her when she needed help or advice. And while Ellen was positively burning up to dispense advice, however dubious her credentials as an authority on this particular subject might have been, Amoretta did not come asking for either help or advice. She appeared to be doing just fine on her own, and as she did not seem to be actively in danger, being taken advantage of, or otherwise led astray, Ellen found that she didn't have the moral authority to do much of anything other than mutely watch in mortified fascination - although despite her discomfort, she resolved to keep an eye out for trouble. She had resigned herself to the reality of knowing-while-not-knowing.

It was the thing that none of them talked about -

\- while she was present, at least.

Life at Revane had fallen into its own unique rhythm, generally defined by Amoretta's new class schedule. On free days, Amoretta continued to write thank you notes, slowly working away at the dragon's hoard of gifts that were still piled up in one of the spare bedrooms. Over time, the house filled up with these items, and before even half the month was gone, the place had lost its summer cottage look and begun to look like a place where two people regularly lived out their lives.

And the rooms themselves lost their strangeness. The more time passed, the more Amoretta felt like the house was their own, that they weren't simply guests at a holiday house on the sea shore, or otherwise children run away from home, sleeping in barns and haystacks. This was a new feeling for her, this comfortable feeling of belonging. Since going away to school for the first time, she had never really felt that sense of innate belonging at the little farmhouse in the New Hampshire hills. She hadn't really felt it at any of the schools she had attended either, although Iris Academy had come the closest to the feeling. But the problem with school was that it lacked permanence. As much as she might have liked to stay at school forever and ever as one of Professor Potsdam's "children who never grow up," she knew that the school could never be a forever-home, even given the identity of her husband.

But Grabiner had given her to understand that she could expect to see the stone and plaster walls of Revane Cottage for many years to come.

It was  _their house_.

And that felt very good.

Being a homeowner granted a great deal of freedom, she discovered, when one did not have to concern oneself with bills, mortgage payments, or neighbors.

Amoretta found that she quite liked playing house, although there was a limit to what Tansy allowed her to do. She was absolutely disallowed from making messes in the kitchen, was barred entry to the laundry room regardless of reason or intention, and was not even allowed to  _examine_ the china cupboard, let alone assist in doing the dishes. Tansy would not even let her clean the toilet.

The most that house matron would allow was for Amoretta to 'dust' the front room after she had already dusted it herself. This mostly consisted of Amoretta milling about with a polishing cloth in her hand, idly rubbing at things that had already been polished.

Amoretta really had quite enough to do with her summer school work without inventing additional chores for herself. Honestly speaking, she did not really need the additional responsibilities that actively keeping house would entail, and was glad she did not have to be in charge of it. And yet, she had a deeply seated desire to do right by people, and so she very much wanted to contribute to the labor that went into running the house smoothly. It was a lot of work, she knew, and she felt guilty just coasting along, having all her meals prepared for her, all her laundry done out of sight, and the house kept clean and comfortable without any contribution on her part.

But of course, these were all things that Lady Halifax  _did not do._

When Amoretta had expressed her interest in helping wherever she could, Tansy had offered her some choice words on the subject. In the end, Amoretta had backed down after Tansy had insisted that Amoretta's 'assistance' would only create more work for the two persons actually charged with the running of the house. Amoretta had no desire to make anyone's life more difficult than it was by, as Tansy put it, 'playing at being in service.'

She had learned only by trial and error that Lady Halifax did not do the dishes, set the table, make cupcakes, or fold laundry. Amoretta was at something of a loss over what Lady Halifax actually did, other than write letters and haltingly practice the piano, when Petunia Potsdam turned up one day after classes had finished with a new entry for that list: chickens.

Lady Halifax raised chickens.

"When I was here last, I thought it was the nicest, sweetest little place, but it was definitely missing something," announced the headmistress, a very large covered wicker basket on the ground at her feet. "And then it occurred to me. Chickens! You were obviously in need of chickens. You see, my precious pullet, Chickens are  _the_ thing if you live in the country. A cottage really doesn't look quite right without chickens scratching around in the yard. They gobble up vermin and weeds, and nicest of all, they produce the best fresh eggs you've ever tasted."

"But we don't actually have any vermin or weeds here," Amoretta sensibly pointed out, although the prospect of being a chicken keeper was very intriguing.

"Chickens are also very sociable," Petunia Potsdam went on as if Amoretta hadn't spoken up. "You'll make best friends of them in no time at all. I've brought you two good hens to begin with: young, lively girls who ought to enjoy your society. They're already laying. The girls are both Rhode Island Reds from the Academy's own stock. I will try to get a rooster for you at some point in the future, but I don't have a good candidate at the moment. Most of my roosters are as wily and cantankerous as Professor Finch," the headmistress finished with a knowing wink.

With so much positive press on their side, Amoretta felt compelled to accept their petition for citizenship, and so Pennywise and Peppermint, the two chickens in the basket, both became permanent residents of Revane Cottage.

When Grabiner came upon Amoretta and the headmistress in the yard admiring the chickens, who were stretching their legs and cackling to themselves, he simply shrugged his shoulders.

"Do whatever you like with them," he commented. "I don't care so long as I don't ever have to have anything to do with them."

One of the stone outbuildings having formerly been a chicken coop, the ladies were soon comfortably installed into their new home, and a new come-and-go door was put in for their convenience by Cord, who was happy to act as assistant chicken keeper. There was a little mild confusion during the first couple of days, as chicken feed and fresh bedding materials were acquired, but soon Amoretta accustomed herself to her new chicken-related duties.

Grabiner snorted the first evening when she sat up in bed with a manual on backyard poultry care rather than her more usual storybook, but Amoretta's diligent study paid off, and she was proud of her knowledge, and how well it served her.

"After all," she said importantly to Grabiner one evening in bed, "You never know when such information will come in useful."

Grabiner wasn't entirely convinced. "I'll be sure and thank you when we end up stranded on a deserted island and your chicken husbandry is all that stands between us and starvation," he said, and then returned to his own book.

On her free days, Amoretta took charge of caring for the chickens herself, but on school days, Cord handled these duties for her. She was reluctant to turn over her hard-won responsibilities at first, but Cord pointed out that the chickens needed looking after, whether or not she was free to do so. So the little chicken coop became a joint enterprise managed by Amoretta and Cord in turns, and soon enough there were fresh eggs on the table at breakfast a couple of times a week.

It wasn't exactly a revolution in sustainable living, but Amoretta felt immeasurably proud at having had a hand in bringing the eggs to the table. Even Grabiner was willing to own that he appreciated the occasional eggs that came from the little hen house.

Tansy, surprisingly, was very tolerant of Amoretta's puttering about with the chickens, and made no critical comments regarding her new agenda of turning Revane Cottage into Old MacDonald's farm. When Amoretta asked Grabiner about it, he shrugged.

"She'd probably prefer it if it were horses or dogs, but if it's chickens you like, then chickens will have to do," he said. "Your interest in chickens is being tolerated as one of the eccentricities of your class," he explained. "So long as you stay within your prescribed social bounds, you are allowed to be quite eccentric. My great uncle was a recluse who rarely left his private study, and my French great-grandmother let lambs graze in the rose garden."

It was at least a little relieving to know that her eccentricities would be tolerated, since she was well aware of her own oddness. It was more unsettling to be reminded of how little she really understood of her new social position. For some reason, mucking out a chicken coop was perfectly acceptable, but asking to sort the laundry was enough to send Tansy into a conniption fit.

As far as the chickens were concerned, even if they hadn't produced any eggs at all, Amoretta would have likely been delighted by her two avian charges. She had almost immediately developed a camaraderie with the two hens that had come from Iris Academy, and they often followed her around the grounds when she was out of doors. Amoretta, for her part, treated them much more like pets than she did farm animals, gave them treats from the pantry, and talked to them both at length, particularly when she was trying to work something difficult out to herself.

It was not unusual to see her out in her chimerical garden, the cardinal on one shoulder, and the two chickens trailing behind her.

And the chickens were not the last housewarming present they received.

One Wednesday morning, quite in the middle of Hermetic Lexicon, Donald Danson and Luke Phifer came calling. It was the first time that either boy had come to the little cottage, and Amoretta very much wanted to give them a tour on the spot: to show them the sea shore, and her garden, and her little study, and her broom, and her chickens - but Grabiner would not allow classes to be interrupted. Instead, he asked Cord to show the boys into the sitting room until classes concluded as normally scheduled, if they had no other pressing engagements (Grabiner had enough experience with both of the boys to sincerely doubt that they had any - legitimate - engagements at all.)

Amoretta was thoroughly distracted for the rest of the class, although Ellen, who saw the two boys on a daily basis and thus had less reason to be as excitable as her classmate, progressed well enough that Grabiner did not have to count the time as utterly wasted.

Of course, as soon as class was called, Amoretta exploded out of the workshop like she had been launched from a fighter deck.

Donald met her with a grin. "School's out for summer, Fiddler," he said, "Or haven't you heard?"

It had only been a little over two weeks since she had seen them last, but such a lot had happened in that time that she honestly felt like it had been ages.

Luke's smile was a little more bashful, although no less genuine. "Sorry it took us so long to get out here, but we've been sort of busy," he said.

After a few minutes, which passed in a confusion of multiple hugs and half-answered questions, Donald managed to calm Amoretta down enough to call her attention to the purpose of their visit. Logan Phifer had been informed of her change of address and as he could not be there himself, had sent a present from the Phifer family by way of his brother. It was a combination wedding and housewarming present, Luke explained, something to make her new life behind the velvet curtain a little easier and more familiar.

The sight of the heavy square box that sat in the middle of the sofa was positively thrilling to Amoretta. She'd opened dozens and dozens of presents addressed to she and Grabiner since beginning on her thank you notes, and all of the presents had really been very nice, although some had admittedly been confusing to a girl who was not a born witch. Still, all of those gifts had seemed very distant and formal, from people she didn't know at all. They were part of the dues of her new position in society, and she didn't really feel as if she had done much to deserve them. But this present came from someone she knew, and who actually knew her. Although Luke had called it a courtesy, it felt less like the observance of tradition and more like a real present from her friends. She turned to share her happiness with Grabiner, but found him standing off near the piano, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked very serious, and he hadn't yet said anything, so Amoretta faltered.

Was this another thing - about being a witch, about being a married woman, about being the wife of a baron - that she did not understand? Was she not meant to accept the gift? Was it more proper to graciously turn it away, or would that be rude? She was itching to find out what was inside the gaily wrapped box, but she well-remembered the tongue lashing Grabiner had given her over the hairpin she had accepted from Damien Ramsey as a Christmas present. Amoretta had no idea what she ought to do.

She bit her lip and tried to telegraph her confusion to Grabiner.

Grabiner was apparently lost in his own inner contemplations, his mouth turned down at the corner. He did not notice Amoretta's distress until she began to squirm slightly in place, which meant that the whole room was subjected to a full minute of uncomfortable silence. Once he did take notice of her unease, he shook his head briefly and then said quietly, "Go ahead and open it."

Relieved that she had been given the go-ahead, Amoretta happily went to sit on the sofa beside the pretty box and had it unwrapped and untied in short order.

What came out of the package was a grooved wooden case with a hinged lid. The case was so heavy that she required Luke's assistance to get it out of the mess of the wrappings. The cover of the case was carved in low relief, a set of runes and symbols that Amoretta did not immediately recognize, although based on what she had learned so far in her material circles class, she thought one of the arrangements might have been a representation of the word "sound." The front of the box had two large openings covered in fabric, and when Amoretta experimentally opened the hinged lid, she laughed out loud.

"It's a record player!" she realized with delight.

It was certainly a record player, although it was a little different than the familiar device that sat on a table in the front room of the little New Hampshire farmhouse. For one thing, there was no electric cable to plug into an outlet, which was fortunate because Revane Cottage was certainly not on the grid.

Amoretta studied each side of the box in interest, and at last, Grabiner questioned, "What are you doing?"

"Looking for a hand crank," she volunteered. "You know, like in the movies. It obviously doesn't run on electricity, so I figured you had to crank it up."

At this, both Donald and Luke laughed, and even Grabiner snorted.

"Please," Grabiner said, rolling his eyes, "This isn't 1932. How many things in this household have you had to wind up?" He paused and then amended, "Other than the clocks. I know you like to imagine you're living in some awful period film, but I'm not going to ask you to put on a gramophone record and dance the Lambeth Walk with me."

"It runs on a mana crystal, I'm sure," Ellen pointed out, mildly embarrassed. Sure enough there seemed to be a socket to receive such a crystal on the top of the device.

"Oh," said Amoretta, clearly a little disappointed. "I was looking forward to cranking it up."

"I think you'd have soon got tired of it once you realized you had to crank it every song," Grabiner noted dryly.

He called Cord in and directed him to the mistress of the house.

"Go on and decide where you want to put that thing," Grabiner said. "This is your sitting room, after all."

After consulting with nearly everyone in the room, Cord and Amoretta eventually settled on moving a small side table into the sitting room and installing the record player on that. It meant rearranging some furniture, but at last it was done, and Amoretta clapped her hands.

"Now all we need are some records," she said. "I don't suppose there are any hidden upstairs?"

Grabiner shook his head. "Not that I know of," he admitted. "I can't imagine that there would be, given that there isn't any other record player in this place."

"That's too bad," Amoretta said. "I was really hoping to try it out. I've never heard music from a magic record player before."

"I am afraid you will be disappointed to find that it sounds very much like music from an ordinary record player," Grabiner said. "Although I am not familiar with this particular model, I imagine it doesn't produce pixie dust or pink musical notes." He paused again and affixed the record player with a critical eye before adding, "Good lord, I hope it doesn't."

"I already thought of that one," Donald interjected, and gave over a flat object wrapped in brown paper. "Once Luke let me in on the secret of what was in the box, we headed into the village and bought what records we could find. Sorry the selection is, uh," he paused as if considering how to describe his gift, "Sort of lacking."

Out of the second package came three records. The first was a Whitesnake LP that was a little battered and had the words 'David Cloverdale have my babies,' emblazoned on the sleeve in silver paint pen, the second was a 78 that seemed to be part of some opera, although Amoretta couldn't be certain, as all the text on the label was in Italian, and the last was a second 78, although this one was somewhat easier to classify, since the text on the label was in English. It was the Platters.

"Well, that's certainly an eclectic assemblage," Grabiner grunted.

"Let's put on Whitesnake!" Amoretta suggested with enthusiasm.

Grabiner looked like she'd threatened him with physical violence.

"Later," he suggested, "After I've retired to my study, and put up some silencing wards."

Amoretta stuck her tongue out. "You're such a stick in the mud."

Their discussion of the new record player had delayed lunch, and so at Cord's delicate prompting they retired to the dining table. Amoretta was still chatting animatedly with Donald and Luke, and promising them a full tour after they had a bit of lunch. She was so distracted that she absently went to the seat at Grabiner's right, although that left them one place setting short.

Her place had been set at the foot of the table.

She realized her mistake at once and retreated to the hostess's seat with pink cheeks, and Ellen took the place she had so recently vacated.

There was so much to get in the habit of doing. Although Tansy wasn't there to make a sharp remark, Amoretta could still hear her criticisms.

She was inelegant, awkward, and common. The reason why she couldn't get used to the seat at the foot of the table was because it was never meant for the likes of her.

Amoretta sighed to herself. Given all that she had learned about herself so recently, she was more certain than ever that Tansy was at least a  _little_ correct.

There was no way that the place at the foot of the table had ever been intended for someone like her.

At times like these, it was all very difficult.

But she resolved to hide her discomfort. She owed that much at least to the friends who had come to visit her in her new home. They hadn't come to see a pensive, troubled mop of uncertainties. They had come to see the bright, friendly girl who lit up troubles with her smile.

She smiled, and laughed when Donald made a joke about the service.

At the head of the table, Grabiner watched her, but said nothing.

* * *

As she had promised, after lunch Amoretta was more than willing to give the boys a full tour of her new demesne. Grabiner retired to his workshop, where he set up a silencing ward so that he would be spared any Whitesnake, should this be the way his wife elected to entertain her hoodlum friends. After Amoretta had exhibited her chickens and her garden and her broomstick, and Capitan, and her little study, the small forest copse and the flat playing field Grabiner had assured her was perfect for tennis or croquet, they found themselves in the sandy little sheltered cove admiring the chimerical sea.

Donald waded out into the water immediately, and after a little teasing, Ellen followed him, leaving Amoretta and Luke perched on one of the ancient weathered stones that had once been the teeth of vanished mountains. Amoretta kicked her feet idly and watched Donald and Ellen playing in the water together. Inevitably, their wading devolved into a splash fight.

Luke was silent at first, as if there was much on his mind to trouble him, but at last he spoke.

"Logan is really honestly sorry that won't be able to visit this summer," he said, scuffing the bottom of his shoe against the rock. "He'd come if he could. He really wants to, you know? Even if he doesn't say it right out."

Amoretta smiled briefly and shook her head. "I know," she agreed. She knew that Logan Phifer rarely owned up to what he was actually thinking. He was too wary for that. She looked up at the white billowy clouds thoughtfully. "He's really busy when he isn't at school, isn't he?"

Luke nodded once, "Since he's the heir, and he's approaching majority, yeah." Then he looked away, "But it's pretty much always been like this. Being away at school was really the most freedom either of us have ever had. It's because the headmistress put her foot down and wouldn't let Simone have things the way she wanted them."

Amoretta knew from earlier conversations that Simone Parterre was Luke and Logan's mother, and the dowager regent of the House of Phifer until Logan came of age, but Amoretta had never heard either boy speak of their mother with anything resembling warmth. She had never heard either boy call her 'mother.' They both respected her, and she was apparently extremely competent, but even Logan admitted that Simone was a very difficult person: hard, efficient, and exacting.

After their father's unexpected death when they were children, the consensus had been that the House of Phifer would falter, perhaps disastrously. It was imagined that the house would at best limp along until Logan, who was a very small boy at the time, was old enough to properly oversee their numerous business ventures - but Simone Parterre had not allowed that to happen. Although not legally a Phifer, as she had married Conall Phifer  _sine manu_ , she had stepped into the leadership vacuum that had opened up after their father's death and held the family, and the family's interests, together. In fact, in the time that Simone Parterre had been dowager regent, the house had become more formidable than ever.

But it had not been easy on either of the boys.

They were both reluctant to speak about it - in entirely different ways - but Amoretta had gathered little bits of the truth over time.

Amoretta kicked her feet again, then observed, "You know, I'm surprised that she let you stay at school over the summer, since she can't keep track of what you're up to when you're off on your own."

Luke grimaced and then shook his head. "It's because I'm the spare."

"The spare?" Amoretta asked in confusion, her brow wrinkling.

Luke gave her a weak smile. "Logan's the heir. I'm the spare. I'm only useful if something happens to Logan. I'm like, a worst case scenario, so the line isn't broken."

Amoretta frowned, "That sounds awful. I want to say something like 'I'm sure it isn't really like that,' but I guess if anyone would know about it then you would, since it's your life." She shook her head and sighed. "All of this stuff about unbroken lineages, and heirs, and inheritance, and being head of house, it's all still totally unfamiliar to me, even though I really seem to be in the middle of it myself, now," she smiled wryly, then another look of confusion crossed her face. "But you're the elder brother, aren't you? Shouldn't you be the heir anyway?"

Luke shook his head. "The Phifers don't inherit according to primogeniture. When they're small, all the kids of the main house line are brought together and a divination is done. When Logan and I were kids, it was just the two of us," he shrugged. "They determine the person most fit to inherit based on the results of the divination, and then that kid is raised as the heir." Luke closed his eyes and looked away, "I think it's pretty clear that in my case, they must have divined what a moron I'd turn out to be."

Amoretta frowned. "You're not a moron," she said.

"Well, I'm sure not a genius," Luke grinned, shaking his head.

Amoretta laughed, "I think there might be something in between," she pointed out.

Luke sobered as he stared out to sea, "I feel bad for deserting Logan, though." He shook his head. "I really wanted to be out of that house, to be away from all of the stuff that's always reminding me what a disappointment I am. You know, it's really exciting to decide yourself what you want to do in the morning, I mean, not have it all set out for you. I never got to do that before we came to school. At home, everything is according to a schedule. Logan's always depended on me, and now I've left him to deal with it all by himself. You know, Simone's been trying to split us up for years now, and I guess she's finally got her way about it."

Amoretta was confused again. "Why would she want to split the two of you up? You're a great team. You'd think she'd want that."

"She thinks we're too close," Luke said, picking up a loose stone and turning it over in his hands. "She thinks we have an 'unnaturally intimate association' - that's how she put it at Christmas, at least. She dropped some big hints that I ought to stay on at Iris over the summer." He sighed. "I don't know what she expects. Logan and I have never had anyone but each other. Of course we're close. I don't get what's unnatural about that."

"I don't understand it either," Amoretta agreed sympathetically.

"Anyway, I stayed here, where I can do what I want every day, and Logan went back to the schedule, a secretary, an overseer, a tutor, and two bodyguards," Luke shook his head and frowned. "He's so close to majority that Simone gives him all kinds of really difficult work to do, stuff that I don't really understand, stuff he'll be totally in charge of when he becomes the legal head of house next May. It's really hard for him and he never lets on. He pushes himself. I'm worried that he won't get enough food or sleep if I'm not there to tell him he has to stop working sometimes. I feel really rotten for leaving him alone, and I'm worried about things."

"Can't you go and visit, just to check on him?" Amoretta suggested. "Even if you're staying here for the summer, you could go visit, couldn't you? Boston isn't that far away."

"Simone made it pretty clear that I wouldn't really be welcome at the main house this summer," Luke said haltingly, "And - "

"Logan asked you to stay here, didn't he?" Amoretta asked gently. It was something she had suspected the moment she had heard that Logan was returning to Boston while his brother stayed on at the school.

"Yeah," Luke admitted, "He did. He knew that he couldn't be here, and he wanted me to stay, well, because, things have been pretty complicated this year, haven't they?"

Amoretta laughed quietly at that, "Yeah, I really guess they have, haven't they?"

" _And how,_ " Luke said, leaning back against the rock behind him. "I can't go back, not even for a visit, because he's the one who asked me to stay, but I'm still worried about him."

Amoretta bit her lip. "You can't Farspeak, right? Remote Farspeak is even harder because you have to use the tell grid. I ought to have made a connection with Logan before he left. Then you could at least talk to him, even if it was through me."

"Well, the main house does have telephones," Luke said with a rueful smile, "But he's usually too busy to talk for long. I've been writing. He says he really enjoys the letters." Luke paused awkwardly, "Do you think that maybe, I mean, I think Logan would really like it, I mean, to hear from you - "

"If you give me the address, I'll write to him," Amoretta laughed. "I mean, I have to thank him for the great present he sent, at least. Thank you too by the way," Amoretta said, giving Luke's hand a squeeze. Luke flushed and looked away. "Besides," Amoretta continued, "I like writing letters. I'm already writing to my father, and to Big Steve. I'd love to write to Logan. I can tell him all about the silly things I do every day, about my chickens, and going swimming in the sea, and about the really weird stuff we've gotten as wedding presents - do you know someone sent us a singing cheese grater? Honestly, the thing just wouldn't shut up, and so finally Hieronymous had to silence it. I'm terrified what will happen when the enchantment wears off and suddenly the thing starts singing arias from one of the kitchen cupboards."

Luke let out a great sigh of relief, "I'm glad," he said. "I think getting letters from you will really cheer him up."

"That's what I'm good for," Amoretta said with a laugh, "Cheering people up. Besides," she admitted with a wink, "It's really nice to not have to be Lady Halifax all the time. Logan won't mind getting letters from plain old Amoretta, will he?"

"I think plain old Amoretta is just the person he wants to get letters from," Luke admitted with a smile.

"Good," Amoretta said decisively, and then slid off the stone into the ankle deep water. "Come on," she said. "Let's go play a little. If we don't intercede soon, I'm worried Ellen's going to drown Donald."

So they waded out into the water, and splashed one another until they were quite exhausted.

* * *

Luke, Donald, Ellen, and Amoretta played together for a long time, but as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, the boys admitted that they were due back at the academy for dinner. Amoretta invited them to stay and eat at the cottage, but the boys both apparently had early morning 'business' to take care of the next day. Ellen decided to go with them, and so after a day of noise and excitement, Amoretta and Grabiner ate a quiet dinner alone.

After dinner, instead of settling down on the sofa to read, Grabiner announced that he was going out to the side yard to practice. He had been reticent at dinner, despite Amoretta's attempts at cheerful conversation. When she had asked if he minded if she wrote to Logan Phifer over the summer he had answered only, "No. Do as you like," and had said nothing further on the subject.

Amoretta assumed that his desire to practice was a desire to be alone with his thoughts and was surprised when he paused at the door and looked back at her.

"Are you coming?" he asked.

Amoretta scrambled to follow him.

* * *

The sun was low on the horizon as Grabiner led Amoretta into the side yard. The days were long this time of year, with hours of diminishing light even after dinner, but the side yard was surrounded by trees, and so the shadows were long and deep.

Grabiner looked up at the lavender-golden sky and observed, "It will be Midsummer soon enough." He closed his eyes briefly before adding, "This year has been passing away very quickly."

Although not yet dusk, it was still not bright enough in the side yard for safe practice, he said. Grabiner sent up a number of witchlights so the field of low, evenly mown grasses was well-lit, and Amoretta looked thoughtfully around at the trees around the perimeter of the field, bright with light as if it were Christmas.

"That's what time does, papa says," she intimated, "He says that time is always slipping away, no matter how hard you try and hold onto it. I think days like these may be the best days of all," Amoretta said with a pale smile. "A quiet day, a day where nothing extraordinary happens, a day when I wake up next to you, and we have breakfast, a day that passes in peace and laughter. I feel that, somehow, days like these are more precious than diamonds and platinum, which is funny, because they seem so common and regular."

"Time that passes away does not come again," Grabiner said seriously. "It cannot be recaptured. It cannot be recreated - even through alchemy. Once it is gone and done, it is gone and done, and nothing is left of it but our imperfect recollections. That is what makes it precious."

He pointed off to the near treeline.

"Go sit over there," he said, "Out of the line of fire. You ought to shield yourself as well. I don't wish to chance you being injured by a stray spell."

Amoretta moved off as she was directed, and then quietly settled down in the grass after casting a couple of different protection spells. It was the first time he'd ever allowed her to watch him practice. She wasn't sure what sort of magic he intended on practicing, but if he'd asked her to shield herself, then it was certainly at least a little dangerous. That he trusted her enough to keep herself out of the way, to stay out of a danger zone, and react appropriately if something unexpected happened was a steady sort of comfort, like his hand on her shoulder.

It began with a line of light he'd drew in the air with the tip of his wand. It was a spell that had blossomed unexpectedly, at least to her, and as she watched him, she realized he'd subverted his rune. She could not tell just by sight whether the spell he had cast was Pentachromatic or Hermetic or something else entirely. The line hung in the air, quivering and graceful, shining like spider's silk jeweled with dew. It looped and curled and spun around itself as he swiftly described its path with the deliberate arc of his wand. It was mesmerizing to watch. He was painting lace in the air, an intricate design that surrounded him on three sides, on a field of land and sky.

And then she saw his mouth move briefly: one multisyllabic word that she wasn't near enough to hear.

Like a match put to gasoline, the whole of shimmering web of lines was suddenly alive with flame, and he was there in the center of it, as if imprisoned in a beautiful filigree birdcage made of live fire.

The display of grace and power and control was so enthralling that she forgot to breathe for several seconds. It was so little like the firespinning she'd seen during April's Thunder Call that she wasn't even sure if the word ought to be applied to the display that had engrossed Grabiner so entirely.

The loops and arabesques that he had drawn were now in motion, weaving around and through one another, and he moved slowly at the center of it all, one booted heel braced against the other as he turned in place.

Then all at once she heard him tap his heel smartly against the ground and the construction of lines and flame which had been so tight and close, a cocoon around his body, was pushed out almost explosively, and came to ascribe a half sphere about fifteen feet in diameter. Grabiner remained at the center of it, still leading a line of fire by the tip of his wand.

At the apex of the half sphere, the lines began to coalesce, as if they were being drawn upward by the pull of the sky. After a moment or two, Amoretta realized that the twisting lines of light and fire had formed the trunk of a tree, and that each slender line that extended from the trunk was a branch garlanded by leaves of candleflame. By this point, all the lines of fire that had once surrounded Grabiner had been drawn up into the structure of the tree, or remained in the network of its roots.

The tree of fire was in full leaf, and Amoretta could feel the heat even at her distance.

It bloomed, it fruited, and then at last, in one beautiful moment, the tree lost its leaves in a shower of sparks and cinders, and then it was gone as if it had never been, and the dying glowing leaves faded away to nothing as they fell around Grabiner like ashy snow.

The spell had finished.

Amoretta was on her feet in a moment, breathless.

Still, she remembered herself, and called, "Is it safe for me to come?"

Grabiner nodded once and waved her closer.

"What was that?" she asked, still gazing in wonder at the spot in the open air where the tree had grown.

The whole display had taken perhaps fifteen minutes. Grabiner had been continuously casting and maintaining the spell during this time. Sweat had beaded on his forehead from the exertion. She watched as it slipped down the side of his face.

"πῦρ ἀείζωον," he said, and the Greek came very easily to him. Then his mouth turned up slightly at the corner, "The tree of fire. That which is born must change." His face grew serious again as he murmured, " _Nascentes morimur_ ," under his breath.

He turned his back on her abruptly, pulling his hat off his head and running his fingers through his damp hair.

"What did you think of it?" he asked shortly, staring off at the treeline.

"It was very beautiful," Amoretta said. "I've never seen anything like it. If you did something like that at the Thunder Call - "

"I am not a circus animal," Grabiner noted with distaste. "I do not perform for an audience."

Amoretta smiled as she tilted her head a little to the side. "I'm glad you showed it to me, at least. Your control was really incredible. While I was watching, I could really believe that a tree with flames for leaves actually existed."

"They do exist," Grabiner said with a shrug, and turned back to face her. "After a fashion, at least. Oh, not like the tree of fire, but there's a whole grove of Wildwick trees at Inglewood. They've got straight waxy blue-grey trunks and transparent golden and orange leaves. Every five years or so they produce a round fruit about this big that tastes a little like a mango. There are little spouts of live flame at the tips of all the branches otherwise, like a lamp tree. They burn continually. That's where the name Inglewood comes from, from that grove. I spent a lot of time among them when I was a boy. I'd like to show them to you at some point."

Amoretta's brows drew together, "The trees are just  _on fire_  all of the time?" she asked in confusion, "How do they not burn up - "

"Magic, naturally. They're not native trees," Grabiner said with a wry smile. "They're transplanted from the Otherworld. They consume a great deal of mana, but they're one of Inglewood's most prominent landmarks," he shrugged. "Such pointless extravagance is expected from witch nobility, I think."

"I'm sure it's wonderful," she said, lacing her fingers together.

"It's a sight worth seeing," Grabiner granted evenly. "I haven't been back to the house in years, but I imagine that I will eventually take you there," he shrugged, "If nothing else, it will at some point become my property, and therefore my responsibility manage," he rolled his eyes, "If my father ever has the decency to die."

Amoretta squirmed in place in discomfort, "Hieronymous, I know it's not my place - "

Grabiner frowned, "It's your place if it's anyone's," he said shortly. "But I can imagine what you were about to say." He shook his head, "Perhaps if you had met my father, your stance would be different. I may have resolved to stop ignoring my duties as the son of the Viscount Montague, but that doesn't mean that I plan to pretend different feelings than those I have for my father. He is a tedious, self-centered, black-hearted scoundrel, and I have no interest in involving myself with him outside of what is absolutely necessary in legal terms."

Amoretta sighed, but Grabiner's mouth had become a thin line. It was clear that he did not wish to discuss the topic further.

"Kavus," he called, snapping his fingers once over his head.

The djinni took a moment or two to appear, but he came as he was called.

"Yes?" he asked. "What is it you wish?"

"Practice targets," Grabiner said. "In my workshop, on top of the tall bookcase."

The djinni nodded, departed, and returned with the items Grabiner had requested.

Amoretta could tell that thinking of his father had caused Grabiner to tense up again, and that he was likely to be very brusque with Kavus. She smiled apologetically and said, "Thanks awfully, Kavus," before Grabiner dismissed him.

Grabiner said nothing to her, simply bent to silently unpack the box in front of him. Amoretta leaned forward in curiosity and tried to spy what was in the box. There were balls and discs of various sizes and weights, a couple of stoppered bottles, a towel, and two or three things she could not begin to guess the purpose of.

Grabiner selected three balls from the box and then moved it off to the side of the yard, near where Amoretta had sat watching him paint his flaming tree.

As if anticipating her question, he said, "These are practice targets that are made to withstand repeated spell impacts. I really ought to spin the tree of fire half a dozen more times before I can call that adequate control practice, but I seem to have lost the taste for it this evening," he frowned.

Amoretta shifted awkwardly in place again, "Hieronymous, I'm sorry if I - "

"You've done nothing," he interjected. "And you ought to understand that it's not your responsibility to apologize to me every time I've gotten myself out of sorts. It's not your fault," he said deliberately, eyeing her seriously. "You do understand that, don't you?"

Amoretta ducked her head and looked at Grabiner's feet. "I just don't like it when you're upset," she answered.

Grabiner smiled briefly, and ruffled her hair with one of his hands.

"I know," he said. "You are very good to me. Better than I deserve, certainly." He looked over at the box from the study. "Your shield is still up?" he asked, and after verifying, she nodded. He gestured back toward the treeline. "Go and sit and I'll try and work myself out of this mood. This display may be a bit less visually impressive than the one I did before, but it is considerably more dangerous. Please keep your seat. I will call you if I need you for any reason."

Amoretta nodded and then went back to sit by the box of spell targets.

Grabiner threw the spherical targets he had kept back into the air one after another, and Amoretta's eyes caught the flicker of mana consumption as some interior enchantment flared and each of the balls flew off in a different direction. They were all moving very quickly, and as the largest one whizzed past her, flying low to the ground, she could feel the breeze ruffle the air around her face. The smallest of the balls was the hardest to follow, since it moved very erratically, sometimes dropping straight down, or zooming straight toward the roof of the sky.

This time she saw Grabiner declare his paradigm, saw the rune circle spin up in front of him, lit with ruby spelltext. It was a Pentachromatic circle. This was Pentachromatic magic. His wand was back in his belt. He was handling this spell with his bare hands. Amoretta saw the flames lick out of the ball of fire that he built between his palms, and then he called the catalyst words that released the spell's fury.

Multihued flames arced across the air and a minor explosion split the silence in half. Amoretta could smell cinders in the air. Grabiner had already felled two of the targets within seconds of one another. The other came down a few moments later to a much smaller spell,  _arrow of flame_.

But he gave her no time to applaud or congratulate him, because he immediately recalled the targets and sent them up again. This time, they seemed to go a little faster than before.

Amoretta watched him bring down targets this way for perhaps twenty minutes, using spell after spell, variation after variation. It was all red magic, all evocative fire magic, although once he had to call up a small deluge to put out one of the targets, which had stubbornly remained on fire after a particularly devastating spell. She bit her lip because although it was quite incredible to see him practicing this way, with such poise and control and power, she could tell he was purposefully exhausting himself, purposefully pushing himself to the limit.

He had taken off his hat and thrown it on the ground early on, and his dark hair was damp against his head from the work he was doing to throw spell after spell so accurately. Then he had shrugged out of his robes and thrown them on the ground near his hat, and had continued to practice in his shirt sleeves.

She could see how the the linen clung to his back, wet through with his own sweat.

She opened her mouth to say something, but he spoke first.

"Amoretta," he said seriously, his eyes never leaving the targets that still zipped around the clearing like large, weird humming birds, "If you want to write to the Phifer boy, then do so," he said tensely, "But you must be doubly on your guard with him."

"Logan?" Amoretta asked in confusion, because writing to the distant falcon had been the last thing on her mind. "But why?"

"The boy knows about you," Grabiner said, continuing to keep the smallest of the targets in his line of sight, "About what you are, or if he doesn't know, he's very close to that knowledge. You cannot give him the slightest confirmation of what he suspects. You cannot admit that he is right when he guesses about you. You must push him off. Talk to him about whatever you like, but this."

Amoretta's cheeks got very pink at the idea that Logan might already have such an intimate understanding of her body without ever having seen it. She tried to swallow her embarrassment.

"But why?" she asked. "If he does already know - "

"It's too dangerous," Grabiner snapped, and then shook his head as if in apology. "I know you trust that boy, so I will not say a word against him, but the secret is too great. If he knows, then he knows, and nothing can be done about it. Given his position, it would likely be much more dangerous to attempt to remove that knowledge than to allow him to keep it. But he must not be allowed to know more than he does now. Keep him, if you must, although I believe he has the potential to be very dangerous. Perhaps it is wiser to keep him close than to drive him off precisely because of that danger, but we will answer that only when it absolutely  _must_ be answered. Please do as I advise, Amoretta," he said soberly. "It is very important."

Amoretta sighed, "If that's what you think," she said haltingly. "I wasn't going to volunteer the information, anyway, but I don't like to lie. What am I going to do if he asks about it point blank? Not that I think he will. He never asks about anything point blank."

"You must be on your guard," Grabiner repeated seriously. "If the conversation strays into dangerous territory, then you must turn it to a safer topic. I have confidence you can do this because of the sheer amount of nonsense you seem capable of spouting at any given time." he said dryly, then his voice softened. "You are very genuine," he said, "And I value that, but you must learn to be canny. In the past, you have hidden yourself away, but now that is no longer an option. You must learn to hide in plain sight. You're already sweet, but you must learn to be disarming. You must learn how to seem entirely harmless while being anything but. You must learn to be a secret keeper, Amoretta, because there are secrets to keep. They're not your own to tell. They belong to the both of us."

Amoretta hugged her knees. "I understand," she said. "Honestly, I've been getting sort of a picture of all that since first coming here. That's really who I have to become to be Lady Halifax, isn't it? You're experienced enough to protect yourself out there," gesturing vaguely to encompass the wide world outside the two of them, "But you can't take care of yourself and me at the same time." She shook her head, "And I shouldn't expect you to, either. I'm not your daughter. I'm not your apprentice. I'm not your ward. I'm your partner. I don't want to be a liability, like a stone around your ankle that you have to awkwardly drag along. It would be too selfish of me to demand that from you, to be coddled and protected like a little child, and I know it would end up getting us both hurt. I know you want me to be whoever it is I want to be, and when we're alone I will be. But when we're out in the world, I don't have that freedom, because it's too dangerous, isn't it?"

Grabiner had lost track of his targets while she had been speaking.

He sighed. "I believe it is," he agreed. "I am a man with a notable social position, and beyond that, I am a man with enemies."

Amoretta's thoughts returned to the porcelain violets. She bit her lip and said nothing.

"I don't wish you to be different than you are," he said gently. "I love all the silly, strange little bits of you," he gave her a rueful smile, then he became serious again, "I cannot ask you to be hard, as I must be. I therefore ask you to be wise instead. Even if you were not what you are, you could not be with me and remain a child. I am sorry to have taken that possibility from you."

Amoretta shook her head. "Don't be. Facing all of these new things is strange, and it can be very frightening, but I'm really not a little girl. I'm grateful for your protection, but I don't want to be a princess locked up in a tower for safekeeping, or a rose tree in a walled garden. I won't be left behind. I have to take responsibility for myself. I want to be able to protect you," she said, lacing her fingers together. "I know that sounds very silly, like what could I possibly protect you from, other than peace and quiet, but I want to be there for you as someone you can respect and depend on. I'll try to think more carefully about the things I say and do before I do them."

Grabiner smiled very briefly and said, "That's all I ask."

"The world certainly is complicated when you figure in other people," Amoretta observed. "It would be much easier if all I ever had to worry about was just making you happy."

"Paradise would be a world with only you and I in it," Grabiner agreed. "Other people are at best bothersome and at worst completely intolerable. As it is, this is a reasonable facsimile," he said, waving a hand briefly to indicate the demi-plane. "Just you and I."

"And Cord," Amoretta pointed out, "And Kavus, and Tansy," she said with a laugh, "And everyone who comes visiting."

"No place is completely perfect," Grabiner admitted with the flicker of a smile. "Besides, you're the butterfly with the active social calendar. No one ever comes visiting  _me_."

"Maybe because they're afraid you'll give them detention," Amoretta laughed.

He went back to practicing then, and kept at it for another twenty minutes, until it became very clear that he had reached his limits. She brought him the towel and one of the stoppered bottles from the box when he asked, and he took two or three swigs from it while he stood, panting. Then he toweled himself off, packed away the targets, and led her off, back toward the house.

He was about to retire upstairs, to the shower, when the familiar chime of the door in the wooded clearing sounded.

Unexpectedly, it was William Danson.

"Show him in," Grabiner told Cord with a shrug, then turned to Amoretta. "I'm sure he's got something for you from that Danson girl. You entertain him," he suggested, glancing down at himself. "I'm in no fit state to do so. I'll come down after I've had a shower."

Amoretta nodded and was soon visiting with William Danson in the great room. Virginia was well, he said. Ellen had written about Amoretta's new accommodations, and Virginia was anxious to visit, particularly as she had heard the food was good. William asked after his brother, and Amoretta was surprised that he hadn't seen Donald himself, since she had assumed that William had come visiting from the school.

No, he had come from Springfield bound for Revane, he said.

Amoretta wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but kept up polite conversation until Grabiner descended from the upstairs. Amoretta was amused and completely unsurprised to see that he'd fully dressed himself again, although it was by now nearly ten o'clock at night.

They had a guest to entertain, after all.

William got to his feet when Grabiner entered the room.

"I've come to ask for hospitality, sir," he said.

He had brought a boston bag with him, and it sat on the floor, near his feet.

"You have it, as is custom, although you might have asked Amoretta the same thing," Grabiner said. "She is the mistress here." He paused and seemed to be carefully considering William Danson, and what errand he might have in the vicinity of their home.

"Thank you," the tall young man said seriously, and seemed a little relieved, as if the first part of a difficult gauntlet had been passed. Then he seemed to steel himself and Amoretta was quite astonished as he dropped to one knee and bowed his head. "Sir," he said in a low, clear voice, "My name is William Roger Danson, and I would be honored if you would accept me as your apprentice."


	6. Five: A Man Who Was Too Afraid to Fly

The response was immediate, adamant, and apparently non-negotiable.

"Absolutely not," Grabiner answered derisively. He had crossed his arms so tightly over his chest it was as if he were already embalmed and being prepared for burial in a gilded coffin in the Valley of the Kings. "And get up off your knee," he scoffed. "You look completely idiotic."

Amoretta shifted uneasily on her feet, mildly embarrassed by Grabiner's reaction. "Hieronymous," she murmured in quiet admonishment, not quite sure where to let her eyes settle. William was a guest,  _and_ Donald and Virginia's elder brother,  _and_ hehad been a valuable source of advice for her during her tenure as freshman student council treasurer. They weren't  _pals_ , but they were acquaintances. Besides, Amoretta didn't think it was very nice to be rude to anybody. She would have offered the four horsemen of the apocalypse sandwiches and cake had they come calling at the house hungry.

Amoretta generally thought of William as a nice boy - not like her own older brother  _exactly,_ even though William had asked her to consider him as such. She had Donald for that, after all.

But Grabiner was not moved by her soft reproof. If she was unsure of where to look, then he certainly was not. He shot her a look that was hard like glass, one that seemed to warn her against involving herself in what he clearly considered a personal matter.

But despite Grabiner's unequivocal answer, William did not get off of his knee as Grabiner had demanded. Instead, he remained still and penitent, and tried again.

"Please, sir," he started for a second time. "At least consider - "

But Grabiner was quick to interrupt him.

"As desperate as you may be for lessons in how to ruin your own life - the only subject in which I feel absolutely qualified to act as a mentor - the answer is 'No,' Mr. Danson," Grabiner said shortly. "As you were generally tolerable while you were a student, in stark contrast to your siblings, I might add, I am willing to overlook this farcical little outburst, but only if you stop behaving so absurdly immediately. I am tired. I have had a long day. I have no wish to spend what is left of it being the straight man in this tasteless little comedy act."

"Professor Grabiner," William interjected, his own cheeks crimson. His jaw was set and his teeth were clenched. "I'm completely serious. I would never joke about something like this - "

"Then you're an even bigger fool than I imagined," Grabiner snapped, and his acidity was palpable. "You may not have considered this in your great, worldwise wisdom, Mr. Danson, but you graduated some weeks ago. You are no longer my student, therefore you are not my problem, nor my concern, even if I were currently bound by duties as a professor at Iris Academy, which I am  _not_ , having taken a long overdue holiday - "

"I am very sorry to have interrupted your honeymoon, sir," William interjected again, his eyes downcast, his cheeks still flushed. "I left it until the very last second I could, but my circumstances - "

"Mr. Danson, I cannot see how this is not yet clear to you," Grabiner said, his voice at last rising in volume, "But I do not  _give a damn_  about your circumstances. I do not take apprentices. I have never once taken an apprentice, and having been my student for four years at that blasted school, you cannot but be aware of this fact. Get off your knees and stop acting like a complete ass."

William hesitated, and it seemed to Amoretta that he was trying to work out whether or not he ought to do as Grabiner asked. Due to her considerable experience with it, Amoretta was certain that Grabiner's temper was sorely taxed. She hadn't seen him this angry in some time - since the last letter from Damien, perhaps. She wasn't entirely sure what had set him off this way. Even if he found William's request to be unexpected and inconvenient, there wasn't really any reason for Grabiner to treat him with such venom and scorn. As far as she knew, William and Grabiner had had a good working relationship as teacher and student - but Grabiner was currently welcoming William as if he were the Grim Reaper, or an IRS agent, or possibly the sort of person who sells assorted brushes from a suitcase, door-to-door.

A minute passed in strained silence, and William had still not risen to his feet, apparently determined to prove his earnestness.

At last, Grabiner clearly lost the final slim, bedraggled shreds of his patience, and threw his arm out toward the door.

"Get out," he said with authority.

But William did not move.

With a deferential voice, he quietly spoke. "Sir, I might remind you that just a few moments ago you granted me hospitality."

At this, Grabiner growled audibly, but then took a deep breath and seemed to draw in his ire.

"Very well, Mr. Danson, if that is how you have elected to play this," Grabiner said tersely. He snapped his fingers once and called, "Cord!"

The butler was there in a moment, but Grabiner had not yet taken his eyes off of William Danson. Having detected a change in the scene, William got to his feet. He returned Grabiner's heavy, threatening gaze calmly, and without malice.

Amoretta continued to shift uncomfortably on her feet, completely unsure of what she ought to do.

Grabiner did not turn to look at Cord while he directed him, keeping his eyes instead on William.

"Please make Mr. Danson comfortable in the front garden bedroom," he said shortly. "He will be staying with us for three days. Please treat him as an honored guest."

"Yes sir," answered Cord, his eyes moving first from Grabiner, then to William, and at last to Amoretta. It was clear that he could easily read the tension in the room, and Amoretta telegraphed her confusion to him. He spared her a slight shrug. He had no idea either.

He moved to collect William's bag, and Grabiner smiled grimly.

"Do enjoy your stay, Mr. Danson," he said coldly, "The facilities are at your disposal, and the servants will see to your needs. As I said before, I have had a long day and no longer feel capable of entertaining guests. Please excuse me." His eyes shifted to Amoretta, and she caught his meaning.

She was still embarrassed over Grabiner's behavior, and unsure about what ought to be done regarding William, but she understood that Grabiner's nerves were frayed, and that he could not spare her, or perhaps was tyrannically  _unwilling_ to spare her. She was expected upstairs.

She smiled awkwardly at William and patted him on the shoulder as she passed by him, to where Grabiner stood framed in the passage to the hall. Once assured that she would follow him, he departed without another word to their guest.

"Good night," she offered as apologetically as she could, and then winced as she heard Grabiner's heavy footstep on the bottom stair, and hurried to follow him.

* * *

After they had retired upstairs, Grabiner had been unwilling to discuss his confrontation with William further, besides reiterating the plain fact that he did not take apprentices. Beyond which, he was quick to remind, they were currently on holiday, and it was inexcusably rude of William to have interrupted them with such a request.

"Well, you are teaching both Ellen and I," she reminded tentatively.

"At my own discretion and invitation," he answered brusquely. "I have extended no such invitation to William Danson, who has, after all, already finished his secondary education. What I had to teach that boy I have already taught him, as one might expect, given that I am employed by Iris Academy for that explicit purpose. If he was unsatisfied by four years of my dedicated instruction, I cannot imagine why he wishes to apply for further disappointments."

And that was all he had to say about it.

Although Amoretta was beginning to develop her own opinions on the situation, Grabiner was clearly in such a temper that she was unsure of her footing. He was all out of sorts and quite obviously wished to be comforted - or at least not riled further. It was a little funny to reflect on how much things had changed between them in less than six months. Now when he was in a temper, he turned to her for solace.

 _I suppose that's one little piece of what a real partnership is,_  she thought to herself. He had comforted her often enough when she was ill, distressed, or anxious: stroking her hair, sharing quiet, steady words, reminding her that she was not alone. In turn, she had learned how best to cool his anger when he was hot and vengeful.

Amoretta wrestled briefly with the moral dilemma of whether or not to confront Grabiner over his temper and his poor behavior as a host, but ultimately decided to reserve judgement and see how things turned out. Tonight, she sensed that riling Grabiner would be like battering a hornet's nest with a sharp stick: a very ill-advised proposition.

And it was not really in her to scold him when he seemed so tormented as soon as they were alone in their rooms. He was wearing his anger like a shroud to cover what it was he could not show to anyone. He was ragged and scarred and worn thin by grief.

After pouring himself a stiff glass of bourbon and running his hand distractedly through his hair, he had turned to her with imploring eyes: angry, lost, and uncertain.

He wanted petting, and she would pet him.

She did not badger him any further about William Danson that evening.

* * *

The next morning Grabiner was unwilling to descend to the table for breakfast, and instead had a tray sent up. Likely, Amoretta imagined, so as to avoid William as much as possible.

She worried over the fact that he refused to have anything but a slice of toast and a cup of tea, remembering how haunted he had looked, standing at the bedroom window and staring out into the dark garden.

However, it turned out that he had not ordered a light breakfast for himself out of malaise. There were great surprises in store for Amoretta Grabiner.

After they had both eaten, Grabiner dressed himself in a way that Amoretta had never before even  _contemplated_ : warmup sweats and crosstrainers.

He produced these rare, wondrous objects from the depths of his trunk.

Amoretta sat down on a dressing stool in astonishment at this revelation, and quite forgot that she was holding a piece of buttered toast.

Grabiner rolled his eyes at her display and said, "I know it is absolutely shocking to discover that I do have a life and habits outside the purview of your stereotype of a dusty professor. Surely you didn't imagine that I kept in this sort of shape by shelving books in the library, did you? Perhaps by turning the pages in a particularly heavy reference book," he said with a brief smile. Then he paused and regarded her steadily. "I'm going running this morning, Amoretta," he explained at last, apparently in a despair over her inability to grasp patently obvious facts.

"I've never seen you go running before - " Amoretta hastily attempted to defend her awe as she bit off a large piece of toast.

It was true. In the time since they'd been married, Grabiner hadn't done much that she might have qualified as a physical fitness routine. She had begun to imagine herself blessed with a husband whose muscles stayed miraculously intact without any apparent effort (unless one counted whacking her on the head with his grimoire suitable exercise).

After all, she was still very new to being a witch and having a wizard husband. This might have been one of the countless and unusual things involved with witch-life that she was constantly discovering: perhaps there was a magical equivalent to the ab roller! Or spells to keep abdominal muscles in a shape that was delightful to the fingertips!

Amoretta certainly had no complaints in that department.

But apparently, this was not the case. It was another situation where magic wasn't exactly  _magic_.

Grabiner shot her a look as she sat daydreaming with flushed cheeks and a piece of toast hanging out of her mouth

"I ran regularly every other morning before breakfast, until I found myself with an unexpected housemate, that is," Grabiner said evenly. "Your arrival was _slightly disruptive_ to my routine, as you might imagine." He paused to drop his hand to rest lightly on her head, "Not that you were unwelcome."

Amoretta smiled at that, then paused.

"I sort of vaguely remember seeing you around campus in a hood and all, now that I think of it," Amoretta thought about it aloud, finally remembering to munch on the edge of her toast. "When I was out delivering the mail." She paused and thought about something, "Does that mean that when I started coming to your door to ask you to go to breakfast, you got dressed in your school robes  _just to meet me_ , and then you changed to run  _after_ I'd gone?"

"Yes, young lady, that is exactly what I did," Grabiner said, turning his back on her. "I had no desire for you to see me dressed so casually. I needed to put distance between the two of us, and one of the ways one creates distance is by keeping strictly to formal codes of dress and conduct. I was your professor, and so I was intent that you should never see me dressed otherwise, regardless of my own circumstances or comfort. I was worried that you might become even more familiar if you imagined you had a glimpse into my private life."

"But I  _did_  have a glimpse into your private life," Amoretta pointed out affectionately. "I'd been in your rooms, I'd seen your pajamas, I even nursed you when you were sick. And I mean, I had seen you in your crimson robes, at the wedding. You were awfully handsome then, even if you weren't very happy," she flushed slightly, remembering, "Of course I thought I had a special privilege. We were married, after all."

"Yes," he said, sitting to pull on his socks, "We were, but as you recall, I was somewhat reluctant to admit that. Anyway, at that point our arrangement was strictly a social contract."

" _Hieronymous_ ," she admonished, leaning forward slightly.

"Well, I labored under the false impression that it was, at any rate," Grabiner returned dryly. "Fortunately I had you on hand to correct my egregious misapprehension of the situation."

"I'm always happy to be of service," she chirped, then gave him a smile was decidedly too wicked for the morning hour. " _To you, especially_."

"Hmn," Grabiner intoned as he affixed her with a thoughtful eye. "We'll see about that later, you naughty little thing."

Amoretta wriggled her toes in amusement, and then wondered aloud, "I know that we're encouraged to exercise at school, but I thought that was just because it was a school, and all schools are required to offer physical education credits or the board of something or other will shut them down. I guess being athletic just isn't something I regularly associate with witches."

"Not like pumpkin pie, Narnia, and ruby slippers?" Grabiner asked with a wry smile, then continued more seriously, "Being a capable wizard isn't only about having the requisite knowledge, Miss Brooke," he lectured, as he leaned over to pull his laces tight. "Physical fitness is  _necessary_. It directly influences stamina as well as mobility. I can't simply do accuracy and control exercises and expect to maintain my current level of proficiency." He paused to brandish a finger at her. "What did I tell you?"

"A still wizard is a dead wizard," she responded obediently and Grabiner nodded once before tapping her on the nose.

"That is correct," he said. "When you get a bit stronger, I'll devise a simple training regimen for you. I don't expect you'll be running laps immediately, but I won't let you laze around all summer like Miss Muffet on a tuffet. This is an important part of your recovery, as much as anything else."

"Oh," Amoretta perked up. "Like physical therapy."

"Exactly," Grabiner agreed. "All things in moderation, my dear. As for myself, I can't afford to get more out of practice than I already am. Otherwise I will surely regret it."

Although he had not said anything specific to worry her, his tone sounded rather more ominous than vain. It was easy to forget, in this warm, comfortable place with fleecy blankets and all the toast she could eat, that she had entered into a world that was both strange and dangerous.

Amoretta bit her lip, but said nothing.

At last, Grabiner was dressed and ready to go.

"And I suppose you wanting to go running now has nothing to do with the fact that William is probably downstairs waiting to talk to you," she said as she continued to nibble at her toast.

Grabiner frowned and fixed her with one eye, over his shoulder, but then turned away from her.

"You are right. It has absolutely nothing to do with our guest. I would have begun running this morning regardless," he said.

Amoretta shrugged, but she was not entirely convinced. "All right, Hieronymous," she said.

But she noticed that when he went downstairs, he went out the back door, onto the terrace, rather that out through the front, where he would have had to cross the great room.

* * *

When she descended herself, a little bit later, she found William Danson on the sofa in the great room, leaning forward on his knees, seemingly in deep contemplation of the rug before the cold, still fireplace. Seeing him in such a state of definite disappointment made her sigh inwardly, but then she drew in a deep breath, fixed her public face, and entered into the great room with a cheerful, "Good morning!"

William perked up at her arrival and did his best to put away his earlier worries, as if he could shove them under the sofa cushions to hide them. She was touched by his attempt to be sunny and pleasant, and flopped down on the sofa next to him.

"Have you had your breakfast?" she asked hopefully. Although it was still relatively early, she couldn't imagine that he might have loitered in the great room for any amount of time after rising without being fed by the creeping domestic terror who was Tansy.

"Yes," he smiled genuinely. "Had a great breakfast, thanks. Eggs, coffee, bacon - Ellen's right, the food here is great. I'm sure once V knows you'll have to change all the locks to keep her out." Then he leaned back and looked idly out the window before admitting, "I wasn't really sure what to do with myself after I'd finished eating though. I'm not surprised that Professor Grabiner doesn't want to see me." He gave her a wry smile. "I guess I made a mess of things last night. It's probably pretty obvious that I came here without a very definite game plan." He grimaced then shrugged. "On the way here I must have gone over what I'd say to him at least a hundred times. In the end, I guess I sounded pretty lame."

Amoretta shook her head. "I don't think you sounded lame," she attempted to comfort him. "It was actually really thrilling. For a minute I was like 'Is he going to propose to Hieronymous?!' and then I thought, 'Boy, things will sure be complicated then!' But then you didn't, which is good, because then I think things would be so complicated I'd need an annotated chart to sort everything out," she finished, throwing her hands up briefly. Then she cocked her head to the side thoughtfully and added, "More than anything, it was  _surprising_. That's it, I think. It was just really surprising."

"It seems like it was surprising like a stock market crash, not surprising like winning a door prize," William observed glumly and Amoretta was forced to agree with an awkward laugh.

They both fell silent and Amoretta leaned against the back of the sofa, looking at the warm spring morning that beckoned past clear panes of glass.

All at once, she jumped to her feet.

"Come on," she said, offering her hand to William. "It's a beautiful morning, and no matter what Hieronymous may think, I'm glad you came up to see us. Come out and see the garden."

And so, William followed her out among the brilliant flowers of the chimerical garden.

After they had seen many of the sights of the old Breton farmyard, they ended up walking together in the dappled sunlight of the small glade that ran along north edge of the property, listening to the songs of the birds. The chickens Peppermint and Pennywise followed them like a pair of spaniels, cackling as they went and hunting for ephemeral bugs. In this idyllic setting, Amoretta found that she finally had worked up the nerve to ask what she had been wondering since William's unexpected arrival.

"Don't you think," she suggested kindly, sitting down on a picturesquely weathered stump, "That you ought to tell me what this is all about?"

William let out a great sigh and sat down resignedly on a nearby mossy log.

"If you don't want to talk about it, I won't make you - " Amoretta began, wincing slightly.

But William shook his head.

"No," he said. "I guess I've been dreading it, but you're right. I owe you an explanation. At least you're willing to listen. After all," he said with an unconvincing smile, "Speaking with the master's wife ought to count for something, right?"

"I don't know," Amoretta answered apologetically. "He seems awfully set against you at the moment. I doubt he'll magically change his mind even if I remind him what a nice guy you are. I don't really think that's the problem, honestly. He listens to me, generally, I think," Amoretta said as her eyebrows contorted in uncertainty. Then she shrugged. "But it's not like I can just  _make him_  do things he doesn't want to do. And I wouldn't want to, either," she said, slightly reproachfully.

William laughed weakly. "I know," he admitted. "I guess I was just making another lame joke, or whistling in the dark, maybe."

Amoretta smiled knowingly. "That's understandable. I used to whistle in the dark quite a lot in regards to the professor. It's not so easy to face him down when he's glowering at you, otherwise."

"I expect not," William said, and eyed Amoretta with something she was certain was respect. It might have been incredulity, though.

"It's all right," she assured him. "I can handle it. I'm a dragon tamer after all. I befriended the ill-tempered dragon Hieronymous Rex, who sleeps on his hoard of overdue library books." Amoretta winked at him in an attempt to put him at ease then paused, one finger against her lip. "No, wait, that's not what it's called, is it?"

"You mean you're a Dragonlord," William corrected, and Amoretta nodded enthusiastically and clapped her hands.

"That's it, yeah," she agreed. "I'm a Dragonlord. I'm definitely an authority on bad-tempered beasts," she laughed. "And this is where his snappy rejoinder would come," Amoretta continued on in a passable imitation of her husband, "And I have the misfortune of being an expert on fauna of the type:  _Juvenile Delinquentus_." She paused. "Only he wouldn't say it like that, since I'm for sure that that's not the right declension for that word. I think it's d-e-l-i-n-q-u-e-n-t-e-s. Maybe. I don't know. My Latin still isn't very good," she admitted.

"Mine isn't that good either," he said, laughing at her round-about way of talking. "But I think it might be more like 'Delinquentes Juvenus.' Don't quote me on that, though."

"I bet Ellen would know," Amoretta said with certainty.

"Maybe," William agreed with a noncommittal move of his body.

Then they were both silent.

It was some minutes before he finally spoke again.

"I wouldn't be here," he said, "If it weren't for my parents." Then he shook his head and amended, "What I mean is, I wouldn't be here  _right now_  if not for my parents. I feel really terrible about breaking in on your honeymoon. I know you guys didn't exactly get much privacy at school, and here I am, a little more than a month after the end of term, barging into your house and making a nuisance of myself - "

"Really, William," Amoretta interjected with mild amusement. "It's all right. I mean, Ellen's here nearly every day, and we just had Donald and Luke yesterday. It's not like we're in seclusion."

Still, she had to admit to herself, her heart fluttered wildly every time William Danson referred to her summer away from school with Grabiner as a 'honeymoon.' It made her want to abandon William entirely, find her distance running husband wherever he was, no matter how sweaty, and force him to hold hands with her and then take her on a picnic. She made a mental note to do this later.

She wasn't sure how many honeymoons included a weekly schedule of classes and regular examinations, however.

None she had ever heard of, anyway, but just because her honeymoon was  _uncommon_ didn't make it any less  _exactly_ the honeymoon she wanted, given the person she was sharing it with.

 _Even in Cleveland_ , she thought.

Half unconsciously she rubbed the burnished gold of the ring on her third finger with her thumb.

If William noticed this small motion, he didn't mention it, although it was hard to misconstrue the silly little smile that Amoretta had developed through the regular mental repetition of the word  _honeymoon_.

She was absolutely  _piling up_  mental images.

"I just imagined," here William politely averted his eyes and found some nearby mushrooms to be incredibly fascinating, "I just imagined you'd be keen on time alone with the professor - "

"Boy, am I ever," Amoretta admitted with a laugh, then leaned comfortably on her elbow. "But don't worry about it.  _I'm getting by_."

William flushed and seemed to be at a loss as to what to say next. Amoretta shrugged and said, "What I mean to say is, 'Your worry is logged, big guy.' But really, it's fine. So what's wrong with your parents?"

"I guess the shortest answer would be, 'they don't want me to be here at all,'" William admitted ruefully.

"They don't?" Amoretta asked in confusion. "Why?"

"Well, mom and dad have got a lot of plans for my future, and Professor Grabiner isn't in any of them," he said with a weak smile.

"Then why'd you ask - " And at last it dawned on her and she snapped her fingers. "I see.  _You_ want to be Hieronymous's apprentice really and truly, even if it's not what your parents want. That's why you came to see us." Amoretta paused and thought about it. "You know, Virginia talked a little about it, you going into apprenticeship, I mean. It seemed like a done deal, like you already knew where you were going and all."

William laced his fingers together and leaned forward against his hands.

"I do have a place," William admitted. "I mean, I haven't sworn any oaths yet, or even reported to the master, but there is a position waiting for me in New York. That's the position my mom and dad really want me to take - "

"But it's not what you want?" Amoretta wondered aloud, leaning forward curiously. It was as if she thought that by tilting her head she might catch the truth more easily.

William shook his head. "Not exactly," he admitted, then tried to explain. "It's a good position. I wouldn't have applied for it if I didn't think it would suit me. I do very much want to study. It's a great opportunity."

"Then I'm not sure I understand why you're here," Amoretta smiled at him gently, kicking her feet lightly against the stump. "Unless you've got some sort of unrequited love for Hieronymous, and if you do, I'm going to tell you right now that it's not going to work. Sorry. I beat you to the punch - and if you're adamant about trying anyway, I might have to punch you 'til you're beat. No hard feelings. Pacifist or not, there are certain things a lady has to be willing to fight for."

"I don't think that's going to be a problem," William laughed, rolling his eyes. Amoretta was gratified to see that his tension had been loosened at least a little bit by her suggestion of romantic entanglements. He did not seem drawn quite so thin, although he was still clearly troubled.

"What is it then?" Amoretta prompted.

"It's a little hard to explain," William said, hesitating. "I suppose what it really comes down to in the end is - I want to be a man like Professor Grabiner."

Amoretta let out a deep breath that she hadn't known she was holding.

"Are you sure you're not in love with him?" she asked curiously, her cheeks flushed in excitement. "Because _I_ can understand what you mean, but I'm not sure most people would. Even knowing everything I know, and not-knowing everything I don't, and loving him the way that I love him, I don't know if I think that's really - I don't know - I don't know if I think it's a very good idea, to want to be like Hieronymous. I mean, I think it'd be awfully, awfully hard on you, like trying to drive to Australia by way of Beirut. Nothing about him is easy. He's like a box filled with beautiful, rare antique treasures and tetanus."

"I didn't set out on this plan imagining it'd be easy," William agreed with a painful smile.

"So now you've got a plan?" Amoretta asked with a grin.

"Maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself," William admitted.

"At the moment, I don't have all that many ideas myself," Amoretta announced honestly, "I haven't even really decided if I'm going to help you. I mean, it's not like I don't like you, but this seems like a really important step in your life, and then Hieronymous is - " she paused. "He's still got a long way to go when it comes to  _making friends_ , I think. Even if he did  _want_ to do it - and he doesn't, last I checked - I don't know if he  _ought_ to do whatever it is you want him to do. I don't know if he  _can_ do it." She took a deep breath. "I need to understand it better. Tell me about it," she said. "Tell me what it is you like about Hieronymous."

"I guess to do that, I'm going to have to tell you a little about everything first, otherwise I'm not sure how to say it," William began uncertainly. He was slowly, methodically wringing his hands, finger by finger. He was clearly reluctant. "You don't mind - "

"I don't mind," Amoretta repeated with a resolute nod. "I'm still trying to wrap my brain around all this stuff. Tell me whatever you feel comfortable telling me, and then I'll tell you what I think about it. I can't guarantee we'll come up with any kind of solution, but I'm willing to bet we won't get much of anywhere if we just sit together staring at the scenery, no matter how nice it is."

William stared hard at the ground.

"For the longest time," he said. "I've felt like an empty bucket." He glanced up at Amoretta, but did not incline his chin. "You can laugh if you want. I know it sounds ridiculous."

Amoretta shook her head. "You're trying to help me understand things. I'm not going to laugh at you. What do you think makes you feel that way?"

"Let me ask you a question," William said. "Be honest. I'll try not to be offended no matter what you say. How is it that you think of me?" he asked, his mouth a thin line. "I mean, how would you describe me to someone else?"

"Well," Amoretta said, thinking about it. "You're friendly, and responsible," she counted out on her fingers, "You care a lot about underclassmen. You care about other people in general. You're a great big brother to Virginia. You want everyone to have a good time at school, but you also think it's important to study. You're generous. You've got a big laugh, and you're not afraid to share it. You're athletic, and good looking, popular, charismatic, funny, you do really well in school, you're a natural leader, and you're good at making people get along - I guess I'd say you're the perfect school prince type."

The corner of William's mouth turned up a little, but the smile did not reach his eyes.

"If I ever need a press release, I'll let you write the copy," he said.

"You asked for my impression," Amoretta said with a shrug. "I'm not exaggerating. It's not an accident that people like you. You've got a lot of really great qualities. I think the whole freshman class looks up to you."

"Except Donald?" William snorted slightly.

Amoretta waved him off.

"Donald is complicated. If you want to talk about Donald, we can talk about Donald," Amoretta said.

"Maybe later," William said evasively. "He's beside the point, really. Maybe he's close enough to me that he can see the truth, and that's why he avoided me at school this year."

Amoretta frowned, "He didn't avoid you," she contradicted, "And what do you mean, 'the truth?'"

"All of that you talked about," William said dully, "That I'm friendly and popular and charismatic and responsible - it's all fake. The truth is, I'm not any of those things. I'm not really much of anything at all. That's why I'm an empty bucket."

Amoretta bit her lip. "I'm not sure I understand."

William sighed. "Of course you don't. That's because you're a genuinely good person. But the truth is pretty simple. Whenever you think 'oh, he's doing that because he's nice,' or 'he's really thoughtful,' or 'he really likes everyone' that's not really true. I'm not taking some kind of noble path through life, I'm taking the easiest route I can. I don't care about everyone. I don't care about much of anything, really. I learned a while ago that smiles make things go along more easily. There doesn't have to be anything behind them. I don't actually need to have good will or school spirit or a passion for my studies. I can just pretend, and so that's what I do. Everything about me at school: the generous, thoughtful student council president, the good sport, the friendly guy who's always laughing, all of that is fake. It's just something I do. It's not who I am."

"William - " Amoretta began.

"Don't act like you know me better than I know myself," he interjected sharply, then closed his eyes as his voice relaxed back into a monotone. "It's not who I am. I'd know, wouldn't I? It's ugly and gray, but it's the truth. I'm sorry it's not very princely."

"That's all right," Amoretta said affectionately, "I'm not all that fond of princes anyway. I'd probably only be keen on a prince who was a dusty old professor. Besides, I like things that other people think are ugly. And you don't have anything to apologize for, anyway. You haven't done anything to me - that I know of, at least."

"I'm not sure you're taking this very seriously," William said with a frown.

"I'm taking it as seriously as I take everything else," Amoretta agreed mildly. "Besides, we're not talking about what I think at this point. We're talking about what you think, and I wouldn't know about that without asking. Which is why I asked." She leaned back a little and philosophically looked up at the verdant tree branches overhead. "But no, I'm not all that surprised that you don't seem to have a very high opinion of yourself." When she looked back at him her smile was wistful and very sweet, her cheeks slightly flushed. "You see, that's something I've gotten pretty familiar with myself."

William sighed.

"So go ahead," Amoretta said. "You were telling me how awful you are."

He frowned again.

"I'm not making fun of you!" she insisted. "I don't understand things well enough yet. If you want my help, keep talking. You think you're terrible, but everyone else thinks you're great. If you are really awful, then why are you always trying so hard?" she prompted.

"Because that's what's expected of me," William said immediately and Amoretta leaned forward with interest.

"Keep going," she suggested and he rolled his eyes.

"I was born empty," he said quietly. "An empty bucket."

He was silent for several moments and Amoretta watched him thoughtfully. After a while, he began to speak again.

"I'm the eldest son in my family," he said, studying the ground. "The Dansons have been witchfolk for generations. When I was small, I learned that if I did what other people wanted: my parents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, then I was praised. I like that: being valued. I felt like I was  _someone_ when I was praised. I didn't feel so empty. It's not like praise filled up my emptiness. It's more like it distracted me from it. I was still empty, but it got to be that I could ignore it. So I learned what it was that people wanted from me: I learned to be responsible, to be thoughtful of others' feelings, to play nicely, to help around the house. I learned to be brave and not to cry, no matter how frightened I was of something. I learned to do things right the first time. I learned to do things without being told. They told me I was a good boy, and I guess I was pleased. I thought I had to be a good boy because adults had told me so. Now I know that isn't true. When I was a kid, I never wanted to be good because it was the right thing to do. I never knew what 'the right thing to do' was. I just did what I knew adults wanted. I was a sycophant."

He stared at his own hands. "Then Donald was born, and I was careful to be the best big brother I could be. Everybody still thinks I am, everybody but Donald, I guess," William's brief grin was painful and Amoretta again shook her head. "When V was born premature, Donald and I were left alone with relatives a lot because mom and dad spent a lot of time with her at the hospital. It was my job to look after Donald, and to make sure we didn't cause our aunts and uncles too much trouble. It was my job to be a brave, responsible older brother. I had to be pleasant and friendly, but unobtrusive. Because V was so sick, our parents didn't have much time for Donald. By the time she was ready to come home for good, Donald was ready to go to preschool, and I was already in elementary school." He shrugged as he looked over at Amoretta again noncommittally. "Until I went away to Iris, that's the way I spent my life: doing as I was told. I was a good son, not because I wanted to be good, but because I was trying to pretend that I wasn't empty. I guess I've always doted on V not just because she's the baby, but because she's so full of life and energy. She's always burning up to do  _something_ , even if that something isn't a particularly good idea. I envy her passion. She isn't empty."

"Donald's full of energy too," Amoretta pointed out.

"Donald's full of  _trouble_ ," corrected William with a raised eyebrow.

Amoretta's brows drew together and she frowned. "I don't think you understand him very well," she hazarded.

"I'm sure I don't," William agreed, and set his mouth to a line again.

Amoretta sighed and said again, "But we're not talking about Donald now. We're talking about you. Go on."

William glanced over at Amoretta thoughtfully, as if deciding whether or not he ought to continue. Ultimately he decided to sacrifice what remained of his ego in favor of hopefully gaining a powerful ally. He did not see how he could proceed otherwise. "You know that when I came to Iris Academy, I was first put into Falcon Hall, right?" he asked.

Amoretta nodded.

William flushed and looked at the ground. "I don't know how much Damien ever mentioned me to you - "

Absently, Amoretta put her hand over her shoulder, where the mark of her other husband's hand still stood hard and bloody on her skin, even under a bandage and a layer of clothing.

She smiled and it had a curious weight. "What I've learned since the past winter is that what Damien said about a person told me more about Damien than it did anybody else. Assume I don't know anything," she suggested, "I probably don't. Nothing credible, anyway. And you don't have to talk about it unless you want to talk about it," she reminded him. "I'm willing to listen, but I'm sure it's painful."

William suddenly felt stupid and petty for bringing his troubles to a girl three years his junior, who had been traumatically injured so recently that she was still weak and recovering. This girl had given up the life she had lived with her family to be the companion of a lonely, bad-tempered man with a terrible reputation. Surely he ought not be the one seeking comfort and assurances  _from her._ His own pain and hurt seemed trivial and doubtful compared to hers, particularly seeing as it was also concerned with Damien Ramsey.

He felt like a fool.

"All of this is so complicated," he muttered to himself. "Why did the professor have to marry you, of all people - "

Amoretta crossed her arms over her chest and sat back a little. "I don't know who else you think might have married him," she said dryly. "And don't say Raven because it isn't funny."

William looked up as if surprised to see her sitting across from him. It was as if he had completely forgotten there was anyone else with him in the woodland clearing. He had been speaking for the benefit of no one but himself. "Sorry," he said. "It's nothing against you, really. I guess maybe this would be easier with someone more - experienced? You're one of V's friends. You're really just a kid."

Amoretta's brows drew together again and she got to her feet. "William Danson," she said deliberately. "Whether or not I'm Virginia's friend has no bearing on our current conversation. I promised you discretion, and you'll have it. You may have forgotten this in the time that we've been sitting here together, but I  _am_ the lady of this household. I'm sorry if you find that disappointing. If you want to keep patronizing me, then please have at it, but I would like to remind you that at twenty, you're just a kid too."

"Look, I didn't mean anything by it. I just - " William snapped in response, and when he looked up at her his eyes flashed. "Damien hurt you a lot more than he hurt me. I've got no right to complain to you - "

The fight left Amoretta immediately and she crossed the space over to where William sat and began to soothingly stroke his head. "It's not a contest. It's not like I win because I've got the most gruesome wound," she said with a gentle laugh. "And anyway, we don't know for sure that my wound is the most gruesome, do we? It's very hard to measure things like that. You don't have to talk about it with me if you don't want to talk about it, but I'm getting the feeling that you  _do_ want to talk about it, you just think that you shouldn't. It's all right, William. I'll listen."

"I started out at school like I had done at home," William began in a low voice. "I already knew what it took to be popular and well-liked, so I did it. It's not that hard to figure out what people want from you. Damien - Damien was watching me from the beginning, I think. He saw - well, he saw that I was acting, that everything I did was false and fake, and one day when we were alone on the hall, he told me so. But he didn't ridicule me. He didn't laugh at my emptiness. He told me that we were alike, that we were both empty. God," here William paused, because he was breathing heavily. He had taken hold of Amoretta's hand and was holding onto it tightly. "I fell in love with him then. What a stupid idiot I was," he said, shaking his head, and Amoretta could see that he was struggling with anger and tears. "But he was so beautiful: wicked, and beautiful, and I just couldn't help myself. It was like falling from a terrible height, and knowing that you will die when you strike the ground, or breathing in even when you know there's poison in the air. It was thick and awful and I was desperate for it. I didn't know any better," he shook his head. "I didn't know any better, but even if I had, it wouldn't have mattered. No one could have told me to lay off him. I was addicted. Damien Ramsey ought to be a controlled substance," he spat his laugh on the ground bitterly.

"What I didn't understand then was what a ringmaster Damien was," William said with a frown. "Angela always thought she had the measure of him, but the truth was, he always had us both going through hoops for his own entertainment. We were like dogs. And he fed off of it, you can be sure. He liked to push us, to see how far we'd go. He was always driving us half crazy with the things he said and did. I'm surprised Angela never slit his throat," William said soberly. "She'd do it too, if he ever gave her the chance now, I think. Or at least, she'd like to think that. If he'd have her back, I'm sure she'd wear a collar. She imagines herself so above all that, but I know. I know if nobody else knows, because I was there."

Amoretta was silent for a minute as she digested all this, and William released her hand. He looked up at her with haunted eyes.

"Don't tell Virginia," he begged.

Amoretta let out a deep breath. "Of course I won't," she reassured him, then she shook her head. "I don't know what you think I talk about with Virginia, but that's generally not on the menu," she said with one eyebrow raised. Then she sat down on the log next to him. "I understand if you don't want her to know, but I don't think you have anything to be ashamed of. Of course, when you look back on it now, it seems to you like a mistake, or a bad decision, but I can tell how strongly you felt about everything by the way you talk about it. There are things in our pasts that give us ugly scars," she glanced briefly down at her own shoulder, "But wishing them away is like wishing ourselves into different people, and even if you don't like yourself, I like you, William, even given everything you've said to me. I don't want you to be a different person, although I wish I had some magic to make you into a happier one."

"There isn't any magic like that," William said flatly.

Amoretta shook her head.

"No," she said. "I think there is, but it might take a while."

William did not respond immediately, but when he did, it was to continue his story.

"When I got involved with Damien and then Angela, I felt like it was something I was doing for myself. I wasn't doing it to please anyone but myself. I didn't care what people would think, or who would disapprove - although Damien was very careful to keep everything under the table. I didn't understand why until later. It felt good to do something for myself. I felt really free, and for the first time, I didn't feel so empty. I really thought he loved me. I was willing to compromise anything for him, and  _he knew that._ " Then his voice dropped off. "Of course, you know Damien. I guess he got bored with me. He cut me off one day, coldly and utterly. He wouldn't speak to me at all, beyond bare conversation, and he brushed me off whenever we met in class or otherwise. Of course, Angela was still in favor, and she let me know it once she realized that Damien enjoyed seeing it." He snorted. "He cut her loose a couple of months later. She couldn't see what was coming - but then I guess, I hadn't seen it coming either." He shook his head. "You know that I got thrown out of Falcon Hall for fighting, right? And I'm sure you know it was Damien who I jumped. I just couldn't take it any more. It was after class - we were both leaving for the day, and he said something to me, just a few words, whispered as he passed by. I don't think anybody else heard it. I saw red," he said, shaking his head. "It's like, I was there watching myself pummel him, but I couldn't do anything to stop myself. I don't know if I would have stopped, if I'd been able to, honestly. Professor Grabiner pulled me off of him. By then we'd drawn quite a crowd."

He smiled bitterly. "I was sure I'd blown my reputation then, that all the ugly, awful things would come out, and everyone would know about me: the real, empty, nasty me. And honestly, I was glad. I was tired of everything, just then. If I'd have been able to neatly check a box off and just die, I would have, but I didn't have the option," he said with a shrug. Then he took a deep breath and held it.

"But that's not what happened," Amoretta prompted gently, and William nodded.

"I was suspended for a few days," he said "And they pulled me out of Falcon Hall, to keep me away from Damien as much as anything else, I think. To the other freshman I was some kind of superhero. I got moved from Falcon to Wolf Hall, so that made everyone sure I was charming  _and_ brave. I had already been popular, and so when I got in a fight with Damien, people just assumed he deserved it. I don't think anybody really understood what had happened at all, but they didn't care. For them it was a great story: 'handsome, athletic guy beats awful demon into a bloody pulp.' From then on, I couldn't have escaped being the all-around honor student if I tried." He frowned, "I didn't know how to. I had lost the ability to be honest. I had lost an understanding of who I was, beyond who I pretended to be. I was just good sport William. Friendly William. Class President William. I was everybody's pal," he said and he sounded tired. "But."

"But?" she asked.

"But I didn't mean any of it. I've never meant any of it," he said. "I am a liar. I have been lying for a long time, not because it gives me a thrill, but because I don't know to do anything but lie. A smile," he said, "Is a shield."

"Yes," Amoretta said absently. "I know somebody else like that, too."

William's mouth quirked up on one end. "Of course it's another Falcon."

"We're not talking about that - " began Amoretta.

"We're talking about me, I know," William interrupted with a wry smile, and he seemed to have recovered somewhat.

"So I think I understand you now, a little," Amoretta said. "What is it that you like about Hieronymous?"

"He's brave," William spoke so quickly it was as if he'd had the answer hidden in his mouth. "Not like the cheap sort of brave people say when they really mean quick-tempered or violent, not like when I attacked Damien. That wasn't bravery, it was blind rage. It was spite and hurt. It's no kind of brave to attack somebody you can easily physically overpower, no matter how much you think they deserve to be punched." He shook his head, "No, the professor is a different kind of brave. He's an honest kind of brave, the kind that's slow and quiet and responsible. It's a kind of bravery that doesn't have to show itself. It's not looking for validation. It's just the way he is, no matter how hard things are, no matter how ugly things are. He doesn't give up things that mean something to him, even if they don't mean anything to anyone else, even if other people hate him for it. He's immensely determined. He's incredibly disciplined. He can be very hard, but he honestly cares about the people around him, although he's really pretty clumsy about showing it, isn't he? He's got a very solid sort of strength."

"You think it's cold," Amoretta said, "But really, it's very warm."

"I'm not looking for easy answers," William said earnestly, leaning forward over his knees.

"Good," she said, "Because I'm sure there aren't any."

She was silent for several minutes as she mulled things over. Then she made a decision. Like most of her decisions, she came to her truth suddenly, and with certainty, like striking a match to illuminate darkness, or spinning a witchlight up from nothing.

"All right," she said at once as she got to her feet, quite startling the chickens. "I'm in your corner. But I can't give you any guarantees," she warned. "That's up to him."

At that William smiled, slow and quiet, but honest at last, no longer quite so bitterly resigned. She had given him a little courage, and he was willing to shelter it with his hands.

"I know that," he said slowly, "It always has been."

In his voice was the whisper of hope.

* * *

After Amoretta's poignant conference with William under the fragrant trees, the rest of the day passed quite uneventfully. Amoretta had resolved to help William plead his case to Grabiner the best that she could, but she had not yet set upon a way to do this that would not drive Grabiner into a corner with accusations of betrayal. Of course, Amoretta understood that by helping William she wasn't really placing herself against Grabiner, per se. She honestly wanted what was best for the both of them, whatever that turned out to be. If push came to shove, however, she would have chosen what was best for Grabiner over what was best for William. As magnanimous as she might be, she was married to the one and not the other. She was loyal to a fault.

Despite all this, she was not yet confident in her ability to communicate the subtlety of her position to Grabiner in a way that he might actually believe. He was cross and touchy over William's arrival, angry that the boy had shielded himself with tradition, rather than be thrown out of the house. If Amoretta pushed him over it, he would surely clamp up as tightly as an oyster and that would help no one, the two of them least of all. She would have to watch and wait and to think carefully over what she ought to do. There was no use laying out any plans until she got a better feel for the landscape. After all, she had yet to divine the root of Grabiner's exceptionally hostile reaction to William's apprenticeship request. Given her experience with him, she had some ideas, but she would have to listen to him carefully - listen to his heart and words and thoughts - before she was willing to consider her theories well-founded enough to act on.

All of this was a little troubling in light of the fact that William's visit had a three day time limit. At the end of the third day, customary hospitality would expire and Grabiner would be well within his rights to eject William from the house permanently. This was not a schedule Amoretta could keep, no matter her many and varied talents.

There was, of course, a neat solution to that.

"I've asked William to stay for a while," Amoretta announced pertly at dinner, feigning an easy confidence that she did not feel.

Grabiner's brows had drawn together then.

"Oh,  _have you?_ " he asked, his eyes narrowing as he stared daggers down the table at her. "How," and here he paused for an impossible period that seemed like hours.

Amoretta could hear her blood beating slowly in her ears. She could feel the earth revolving underneath her. She knew that the sun itself was answering the pull of a supermassive black hole that spun in the center of the galaxy. She could feel the fingers of time on her skin, steady and unnerving.

" _Pleasant_ ," he finished at last, leaning back slightly in his chair.

Amoretta could feel his menace, lean and dark and ominous. It was pressure, a feeling that was the color of powdery spilled blood, blood that has long been dried but that has been left as a warning:  _do not cross me_.

It said,  _we will have words concerning this_.

For a moment, Amoretta's heart ceased beating as she had a premonition of her immediate future.

 _It's come at last,_  she thought.  _He'll dump me down a well and all the critics will be satisfied. I bet they'll write about it on the society page_ :  _'Long Suffering Baron Kills Idiot Schoolgirl Wife After She Pushes Her Luck Too Far.'_

But then all at once she remembered to breathe again.

 _There's only one defense in a situation like this: play dumb play dumb play dumb. Play really dumb. Play as dumb as you possibly can_.  _Play the dumbest you have ever been,_  her mind ran away from her in a wild mixture of anticipation and sheer terror. She felt like she had entered the center ring of a circus to perform death-defying feats that she had simply forgotten to practice beforehand.

"Yeah, you know," she continued cheerfully, "I've really been interested in model trains lately," she said with a beautifully vacant smile, as if butterflies were busily pollinating flowers between her ears. "And William knows lots and lots about model trains."

"I - " William began blankly, but then he caught the edge of Amoretta's radiant desperation and suddenly nodded emphatically. "Yes, that's certainly true. It's hard to find someone more enthusiastic about model trains than I am. Boy, I just love them."

"Really," stated Grabiner dubiously, his voice so flat that the word in no way resembled a question, but Amoretta treated it as such.

"Yep!" she chirped. "I feel really lucky that William dropped in to see us. He's agreed to help me set up my own model train set."

"That certainly seems like something that would require a lot of specialized expertise," Grabiner continued dryly. "It's a wonder than ten year olds seem to manage it on their own."

"Oh Hieronymous," Amoretta feigned indignance. "Don't tease. There are lots of complicated things to keep in mind, especially if you want to keep it accurate  _and_ to scale. You don't know the first thing about active miniatures.  _Admit it_."

"All right, I admit it," Grabiner said, rolling his eyes. "I haven't played with models since I was about eleven, I suppose. I can't say I was ever much interested in trains other than as a mode of transportation."

"There," she said triumphantly, tapping the table lightly for emphasis. "It's a lot more complicated than you make it out to be, especially if you want it to be nice, and I want my train set to be  _extra specially_ nice." She put on her sweetly vacant smile again as she continued pleasantly, "You know how I just love engines and cabooses and, um, switching stations, uh, wigwags, and crossbucks, you know, all that train stuff - " Amoretta began to panic as she rapidly exhausted her train-related vocabulary.

"And where you do plan on setting this up, the middle of the sitting room floor?" Grabiner demanded, now clearly worried that their charade had taken on such a life of its own that it threatened his peace of mind on its own account.

"Oh no," Amoretta continued with a bright smile, like a merry-go-round spinning on blissfully in a vacant schoolyard. "I'd never think of doing something so silly," she said with an innocently girlish wave of her hand.

Grabiner leaned forward, pillowing his chin on one of his hands. He did not look amused.

 _I guess I'm laying it on a little thick,_  Amoretta realized and backpedaled away from the sugary sweetness of Pollyanna Overdrive.

"We're going to use the cowshed," Amoretta announced in a moment of pure unadulterated inspiration. "No one's using it for anything, and it's empty, so it's really  _perfect_."

It was perfect on several levels. It gave them a convenient location at least moderately shielded from Grabiner's constant surveillance where they could discuss their options openly and consider various strategies without having to resort to model train based code. It also gave them a reason to stay huddled up inside the cowshed, ostensibly planning for model trains that might or might not ever materialize.

"And where are you going to get a train set?" Grabiner asked suspiciously, as if he feared she had one hidden under the dinner table at this exact moment. With Amoretta, one could never tell.

But this was a question Amoretta was ready for.

"I thought I'd ask Cord to get one for me," she answered innocently. "You told me to ask him for anything I needed."

Grabiner was silent.

Amoretta held her breath, counting quietly to herself as she wondered if her shoestring bridge of fibs and inventions would hold up under the strain of her husband's scrutiny.

At last he sighed and threw his hands up in resignation. "First jigsaw puzzles and now trains," he said, rolling his eyes. "Next you'll become interested in collecting bottle caps. Go ahead and have Cord get whatever you need for your sudden train-mania. Just keep it out of the way, will you? I'd rather not lacerate my feet by inadvertently stepping on one twelfth scale track."

At this Amoretta brightened, honestly delighted and suddenly very interested in the prospect of actually playing with model trains. "Do you really mean it?" she asked, her cheeks turning pink with excitement.

"Of course I do," Grabiner said with an absent wave of his hand. "You haven't asked for anything at all since we moved here, and even I recognize you can't study all of the time. Your health isn't good enough for you to fly as much as you'd like, either. If you want to mess about with trains, then please enjoy yourself, so long as you don't expect me to play along."

"Oh good!" Amoretta said, clapping her hands and beaming at William, who returned her smile.

They had won their first victory. Even though it was a small victory, it marked the place from which they could begin.

"But," Grabiner cut into their shared elation mercilessly, stabbing his finger out at Amoretta, "I hope I do not have to remind you: no electrics. No batteries. I'll not have you become a heretic over some absurd hobby you've got a wild hare for." He fixed a heavy eye on William. "I expect you to show prudence, Mr. Danson. Although I am somewhat reluctant to do so, I am leaving my wife in your care, as someone familiar with our laws and customs. Please don't give me reason to regret placing my trust in you."

William met his heavy gaze calmly, and nodded his head once resolutely, saying, "You can count on me, sir."

* * *

The next day Amoretta and Ellen attended class as usual. Ellen was surprised at first by the unexpected presence of William at Revane, but once she had heard about his circumstances from Amoretta - that he had come to ask for apprenticeship, been rejected, and was staying on to help Amoretta with her new hobby, model trains - she had welcomed him, if a bit awkwardly. Amoretta was not yet willing to share her full thoughts about William and Grabiner with Ellen. It would end up being too complicated, she thought, even if she did succeed in keeping all of William's secrets, as she had promised. It was especially complicated considering Ellen's as-yet-unresolved feelings toward the eldest Danson son.

William had rejected her politely and with great consideration for her feelings, as Amoretta understood it, and Ellen had accepted defeat without any anger, only resignation. After a thanksgiving holiday spent at the Danson homestead, Ellen had been cheerful as she announced to Amoretta that she was completely over William, and had resolved to accept his offer of uncomplicated brotherly friendship. Although Amoretta received this declaration attentively, and resolved to have faith in what her friend told her, she could not help but feel that Ellen was trying hard to wish coal into diamonds, or diamonds into coal - which, she wasn't entirely sure.

Ellen was trying very hard to push troubles out of her heart, Amoretta thought, because they were inconvenient, unwanted, and unseemly. But the worries and wanderings of the heart are not so easily buried, however inconvenient they may be. It was not difficult for Amoretta to recognize that there were times when Ellen was clearly uncomfortable around William. She was trying her best not to be: to smile, and laugh, and be friendly, but it was as if she were charged up with static electricity, and just waiting to pop and spark.

" _I wish I weren't so weird,_ " Ellen lamented to Amoretta in between classes, having dragged her off to the powder room. "I don't know why I'm being so weird. I'm trying  _so hard_  not to be weird around William, but I keep doing weird stuff and saying weird things. I've got to be the weirdest person he's ever met." She covered her face with her hands, deeply embarrassed.

At this Amoretta raised an eyebrow. "I don't know," she said. "He knows Big Steve  _and_ Balthasar Brundrick. Compared to them, you're winning the crown and sash for Miss Normalcy 2003. Really, it's not that bad, Ellen. You're just a little stressed is all. That's pretty normal, considering."

"Considering he as much as hung up a sign that said 'No Ellens Needed, Do Not Inquire Within'?" Ellen asked, then shook her head once, hard. "I should never have been stupid enough to ask in the first place. We're not the same kind." Amoretta bit her lip, but Ellen wasn't finished. "Besides," she said, drawing in a deep breath to calm herself. "I'm over all that. He said no, and that means no, and I am a rational adult. I am completely over William Danson," she repeated to herself, her face perfectly schooled. Then the lines between her brows trembled again. "I just wish I could stop acting  _so weird._ The only time I'm not saying something weird is when I'm saying something completely stupid instead."

"Well, whenever you're feeling stressed about things you can try imagining something calming and nonthreatening, like a nice potted hibiscus, or a manatee," Amoretta suggested.

"You think I'll start acting  _less_ weird if I'm pretending there are manatees around me all of the time?" Ellen asked suspiciously, her lower lip pushed out slightly.

Amoretta shrugged apologetically. "It was just a thought," she said. "Besides," she admitted, "I'm not really sure that I'm the one who ought to be giving pointers on how not to be weird."

At last Ellen smiled, her tension eased.

"You're probably right," she agreed, and Amoretta stuck her tongue out in eloquent rebuttal.

* * *

William secured permission to observe Amoretta and Ellen's classes from Grabiner, provided he neither spoke nor moved while class was in session. Amoretta privately thought that Grabiner allowed this only in hopes that it would discourage William from any lingering hopes of apprenticeship.

"He needs to understand how completely tedious it would be to be apprenticed to a school teacher," Grabiner declared to her that night, after they were safe inside the warded sanctity of the master bedroom. "Once he gets it through his head that I have no great secrets to teach him, he'll hopefully lose interest in your model trains and leave us both in peace."

"Hopefully!" Amoretta echoed cheerfully.

"Don't think you're fooling me, Amoretta Suzerain," Grabiner said, brandishing a finger at her. "I know you're nurturing some bizarre, half-baked sympathy for the boy, but whatever it is you're planning, it isn't going to work," he said definitively. "I will not take an apprentice."

"Of course you won't, Hieronymous," she agreed pleasantly. "You already told me so."

Grabiner sighed and gently tapped her on the head with his grimoire, letting it come to rest there.

"You won't convince me otherwise," he reiterated.

"You're awfully appealing when you're all serious and your brow's all scrunched up," Amoretta observed, raising her hand to lightly smooth his wrinkled forehead, brushing the dark hair out of his eyes.

"Amoretta, don't try and change the subject by distracting me - " Grabiner said, the corner of his mouth turning down.

"There," she said in gleeful triumph, "Now you're practically irresistible. All that's left is for you to threaten me with detention or something." She had taken the grimoire out of his hands as she spoke and begun tapping playfully on his chest with small, agile,  _expectant_ fingers. He eyed the grimoire where she had left it on a dressing stool, but did not move to immediately reclaim it.

"Please, Amoretta, as the tired adage goes, I was not born yesterday," Grabiner complained, "Your intentions are not very difficult to read - "

"I hope not," Amoretta said with an impish quirk of her mouth. "After all, I'm counting on your cooperation," she said as she nimbly reached up and popped the top corner button of his robe out of its hole.

" _Keep your hands to yourself when we're having a serious conversation,_ " Grabiner cut in, seizing her hands with both of his own and holding her wrists crossed in front of her in an attempt to get her to keep still long enough for him to deliver at least a brief lecture.

"Will do, teach," Amoretta agreed pleasantly, although she clearly intended to do otherwise. She ducked down, lifting her hands over her head as she turned around so her wrists uncrossed themselves. Grabiner found himself with his arms around her waist and the back of her head against his chest. She leaned back against him bonelessly, and then  _squirmed_ a bit. She let go of his hands and laced her fingers together over her heart. "Is this better?" she wondered. "I'm keeping my hands to myself."

"You  _are_ awful," he said in affectionate exasperation, having given up the thought of lecturing her.

He was, at the moment, considering other forms of education.

"You're the one who likes awful girls," Amoretta pointed out.

He chuckled at that, and so their conversation concerning William Danson's future was tabled for a later date.

* * *

But before they were to have their intimate conversation, they had a day of class to finish, a day of class which included practical exercises in the out-of-doors. The early afternoon found Amoretta, Ellen, Grabiner, and their politely silent observer William out in the field where so recently Amoretta had watched Grabiner paint the tree of fire. This was where they had all their practical lessons. There was plenty of open space, the lighting was good, and it was close enough to the house that refreshments could be fetched easily when either of the girls got tired and needed a rest.

Today, Cord had delivered lemonade, sliced fruit, and cold cut sandwiches. Grabiner was insistent on them eating small snacks regularly while they practiced. It allowed them to keep at it for much longer, and this in turn helped them build up their stamina, as well as making the best use of their class time. On practical days they did not sit for a formal lunch inside, but instead snacked right up until the practical lesson finished and Grabiner declared the day finished. Tansy did not care overly much for this arrangement, but Grabiner had made his views on the subject abundantly clear and so she acquiesced begrudgingly, sending out boxes of sandwiches, fruit cut into whimsical shapes, and occasional currant buns.

Practical exercises were somewhat challenging for Grabiner to direct, because Amoretta and Ellen had very different strengths and weaknesses. Unlike a lecture class, or even one which he taught by leading a discussion, when he was working with them out under the sky, they both required separate, individually tailored lesson plans. It was the only way to properly nurture their potential. It was also the only way to keep them both in check, satisfied by their progress, and yet carefully monitored, so neither would attempt magic that was beyond their ken. If they dabbled above their level without guidance, they could potentially hurt themselves or one another.

If they had been training different skill sets, practical lessons might have been easier to manage. Often when he taught practical lessons at Iris Academy he did so by pairing students up and having them face one another in closely monitored combat. But, Amoretta was a completely synergystic witch, so pitting them against one another in mock combat was rarely a useful exercise. Every match was sudden death. Either Amoretta's teleport beat out Ellen's paralyzation spell, and Ellen ended up in the upstairs bathroom of the cottage, or Ellen's spell beat Amoretta's, and the other girl ended up in a limp heap on the ground. Neither outcome was particularly educational to either of the girls. Ellen was already tolerably familiar with the upstairs bathroom, and Amoretta was altogether chummy with the ground.

Occasionally it was instructive to pair the girls together: Amoretta in back as the synergist and Ellen in front as the vanguard, but in this combination they could cause so much trouble for him that it was difficult for him to hold his own against them without fielding spells that were too heavy for them to repel. His intention was to teach them, not hospitalize them.

But most often the girls required practical instruction in two entirely unrelated subjects.

This meant that Grabiner had grown accustomed to doing two completely different things at once as a matter of course. It was like coaching one person on the violin, and another on the xylophone, while both played entirely different songs.

It was not always a discordant experience, but it was rarely harmonic. Still, he had long ago learned how to split his attention between multiple problems.

This particular day found him pitching soft rubber balls one after another at Amoretta. She was catching them as they came in a glimmer of blue magic and teleporting them back into the basket that hovered at Grabiner's elbow. She was up to three balls per spell, and she could generally catch them no matter what angle or speed he threw them. Her goal, which at the moment seemed quite far off to her, was five balls per spell at twice her current distance. Once she could do this without error, Grabiner was willing to let her begin teleporting herself around again. Every once in a while she missed a ball - usually when Grabiner tried to push her against her limits, shaving down the time it took her to cast her spell. These errant balls generally bounced harmlessly off her head and didn't provide much injury past mild embarrassment. She had learned to catch them on the rebound and send them back to the basket.

In between pitching balls at Amoretta, Grabiner was leading Ellen through a field shifting exercise. He would shift the elemental affiliation of the magic field under their feet, and she was meant to respond by shifting the field to an element favorable to herself. Every once in a while he engaged her with a light elemental spell, just enough to give her a little jolt if it connected. She was meant to neutralize these spells by shifting the field, deflecting them, or shielding herself. It was an exercise meant to make elemental counter-shifting second nature, very useful for a witch who was studying elemental magic, particularly one who had learned mostly through research and study, rather than practical experience.

Ellen did very well at counter-shifting, generally. Grabiner had discovered that her highly analytical mind was adept at organizing and recalling information, even given complex interdependencies. She excelled when she relied on her natural strengths: logic, patience, and solid methodology.

Both of the girls were remarkable in their own ways. Amoretta's mind was a strange, keen, beautiful thing. It was deep and odd and filled with treasures, although some were so weird he had difficulty labeling them as such. There were times when she grabbed hold of difficult and esoteric topics with such ease that he was sure she was a genius, because she seemed to swim in thought as naturally as a fish swims in water.

But then there were times when she knocked over her desk, fell on her head, and was generally so uninspiringly ungeniuslike that he was utterly unconvinced of anything excepting the fact that she had an admittedly bizarre brain.

After all, her French spelling was so bad she ought to have earned a medal for sheer creativity, her Latin was positively felonious, and she had more than once blown up her cauldron during a very mundane alchemy lesson. He had been leading the two girls through a simple hermetic decoction when her little pot had begun dancing of its own volition. An explosion that made the rafters creak had followed. How she had done this, he had no clear idea. Perhaps that in itself was a mark in favor of her being a genius:  _a genius at getting into trouble._  If this were the case, she was not a particularly unique student at Iris Academy.

Ellen, on the other hand, was a much more manageable student. Ellen  _made sense_. She was the sort of student he could understand. Although she was sometimes unruly when she disagreed with received wisdom, she was always respectful about the way she disagreed with him, at least while they were in class. Outside of class, she was willing to fight like a little cat, and although she was young, Grabiner had learned to begrudgingly grant that she did her very best to educate herself. She had no desire to be ignorant.

And she wasn't, although she often lacked experience. Beyond that, she was clever and dedicated. He understood that she did not think particularly well of herself, especially as she inevitably compared herself to Amoretta, beside whom she gauged herself as quite ordinary. She was not an ordinary student in the least, but Amoretta's occasional uncanny brilliance was such that by comparison Ellen found herself dull and mundane. And although Amoretta was continually impressed by Ellen in class, particularly with the breadth of the knowledge she seemed to have just offhand, at her fingertips, Grabiner sensed that while Ellen appreciated Amoretta's praise, she did not really think she deserved it.

She was unwilling to accept that she was special in any way. In fact, she seemed to violently reject this notion, and anything related to it. She did not want to think she mattered. She could not imagine herself as anything other than silent. She did not believe she was worthy of anything, least of all admiration and attention.

Grabiner was not one to encourage conceit in his students, and he was pleased that Amoretta showed little inclination toward developing in this direction, but he thought that Ellen Middleton might have done well with a  _little_ conceit. She was easily keeping up with Amoretta in all the accelerated classes he had devised, despite the unfamiliarity of the material. She was a very gifted student. If the two girls continued on at their current pace for the rest of the summer, he was going to recommend that they both be cleared for third year classes in the autumn.

There was little good to be had in attempting to stifle potential, and perhaps a great deal of harm, as he had learned. He could not trust the rule of fear in relation to either of the girls. They instead required guidance that was firm, but not discouraging, and mentoring that led, but did not dictate.

At this point in their studies, Grabiner was satisfied that Amoretta would no longer attempt to bind a circle in blood except in the most awful of circumstances, and was equally confident that Ellen would no longer stand by while Amoretta tried to open the Spiral Gate, no matter the small brunette's reasons. They were good classmates to one another, and teaching each one individually made teaching the both of them easier. He counted on the fact that Amoretta had a way of bouying Ellen's spirits up when she seemed most discouraged, and that Ellen could be relied upon to tattle on Amoretta if she came up with a dangerous, harebrained scheme.

The best he could do for both of them was to go ahead of them, walking backwards, and carefully guide how they developed by placing useful lessons in front of them.

Which was what he was doing currently.

Amoretta's stomach growled alarmingly, and startled her so much that she missed a ball and it hit her between the eyes. She reacted quickly, and teleported it back into the basket before it hit the ground, but Grabiner still called, "Take a break!"

He neutralized the elemental field at his feet and the grass lost its weird tint. Ellen relaxed and put her wand back into her belt pouch.

Amoretta was already investigating the sandwiches and lemonade.

"Sandwich time is my favorite part of school!" Amoretta announced as she flopped down on the grass with a sandwich triangle.

Grabiner rolled his eyes, "If only you studied everything with the same dedication you show toward sandwiches," he said.

"Then I'd already be Witch-Queen of the Free World," Amoretta suggested between bites of sandwich. "Don't worry," she said slyly. "I'd still let you be royal husband."

"Too familiar, Miss Suzerain," Grabiner said as a warning, extending his grimoire in her direction.

She covered her head in mock submission, getting sandwich crumbs tangled in her hair. Ellen, who was by now sitting near her and eating part of a banana, sighed in a familiar mixture of distress and affection and resignedly began picking the breadcrumbs out of her hair.

William approached the two of them at Amoretta's friendly invitation. He hesitated a bit, unsure if he was required to be silent during what was clearly a break, but Amoretta apparently had no such compunctions.

"Come on and have a sandwich," she suggested as she waved her own at him. "It's sandwich time. You're allowed to talk."

After a sidewise glance at Grabiner proved that William was granted this privilege, he helped himself to a sandwich triangle.

"Your field shifting is really good, Ellen," he observed warmly as he sat down next to them.

Ellen murmured a thank you into her fruit, but otherwise said nothing else. Amoretta took it upon herself to continue the conversation, so Ellen would not feel so on-the-spot. Briefly, Amoretta wondered if she was imagining manatees.

"Isn't it?" Amoretta agreed brightly, munching away at her sandwich. "I love to watch her when she's at it. It's really exciting to see the colors change and watch the spells be altered."

"You're not studying field shifting right now, Amoretta?" William asked with curiosity.

Amoretta shook her head. "Nope. I'm not advanced enough yet. I'm still learning elemental relationships. It's sort of slow going for me since I didn't study any red magic last year. Even the elemental divisions are new to me. Sometimes I mix up mud and dust and ice."

"It's really impressive that you're already doing stuff with the secondary elements," he said, "Especially considering you're both wildseeds."

Out of the corner of her eye, Amoretta saw Ellen stiffen slightly. Ellen was still nervous and sensitive over her wildseed origin. She felt it like an infirmity that she would never really overcome. It was another item on the list headed by the words 'I'll Never Be Good Enough.' She curated this list herself with a mixture of meticulous care and self-loathing. Of course, William had no way of knowing this, Amoretta told herself.

She was about to break in with a cheerful observation to diffuse the slightly awkward feeling around the sandwich basket when Grabiner spoke instead.

"It's not that remarkable," Grabiner cut in impassively. "They both put in considerable effort, and their results are within expectations. Miss Middleton is a good student: dedicated, thoughtful, attentive, and Miss Suzerain is - " he rolled his eyes slightly, "A necessary one. The circumstances of their lineage have very little to do with their aptitude, Mr. Danson," he finished crisply.

Amoretta winced slightly.

 _All this from the man who recently told me that wildseeds were like stray cats,_  she thought.  _I guess he doesn't like seeing his students bullied, even by someone with good intentions. Or maybe he's just looking for a reason to yell at William._

William raised both his hands, "I meant no offense," he said apologetically.

Grabiner tilted his head dismissively to the side. "I'm not the one likely to have been offended, Mr. Danson," he said brusquely.

Amoretta made some vague movements in Ellen's direction, which William caught.

"I hope I haven't hurt your feelings, Ellen," he said and then affectionately patted her on the shoulder. "I know you're a good student. I shouldn't have been so surprised that you're doing well. I was just admiring your skill," he said with a grin. "I wasn't doing anything like this the summer after freshman year, that's for sure."

Ellen flushed. "My feelings aren't hurt," she was quick to deny. "I wasn't even listening, really. Sorry, I was just thinking about sandwiches. Because I like sandwiches." Her flush deepened after this strange statement and she shoved the remains of a sandwich triangle into her mouth to cover her unease.

She choked a little on the sandwich triangle, and William was soon patting her on the back again and offering her lemonade as she recovered herself.

"You shouldn't just wolf them down," he joked, "No matter how much you like sandwiches."

"You're right," she agreed quietly, "I shouldn't."

Conversation during the sandwich break petered out after that, which might have been for the best, since Grabiner soon had them back on their feet again, working on their individual lessons.

The class was passing uneventfully, and Amoretta was just beginning to wish for another sandwich break as she concentrated on carefully returning the balls to Grabiner's basket, when she heard the crackle of an electrical discharge and then heard Grabiner swear.

It all happened very quickly. Grabiner was neutralizing the field underneath him. Ellen was on the ground several paces away, very still.

"Amoretta," he called without looking in her direction, his words short and direct. "Stabilize her."

He was already busy casting a spell she did not recognize. She did not need to be told twice, and moved to Ellen's side swiftly, doing her best to remain calm and keep her head. They had drilled for circumstances like these, because even with appropriate precautions, practicing with live magic was dangerous. Amoretta was already casting her spell when she felt William come up beside them.

"Please remain at a distance," Grabiner said curtly. "She's in no immediate danger. She's just had a mild shock."

Amoretta had finished her stabilization spell by this point. Grabiner nodded once after checking Ellen's vitals. "All right, Amoretta. It's safe to give her a little green."

Amoretta did as he directed and was relieved to see Ellen stirring as she finished her spell. Grabiner helped her to sit up. She still seemed dazed.

"What happened?" she wondered aloud, rubbing the back of her hand across her damp forehead.

"You shielded an electrical spell while you were in a water field," Grabiner said briefly.

"Well, that was stupid of me," Ellen said dully, still rubbing at her forehead.

"I wouldn't call it a wise strategic move, no," Grabiner dryly, his hand still on her back. "How are you feeling?"

"A little dizzy," Ellen admitted.

Grabiner considered her for a moment. "Very well," he said. "We are finished. Class is dismissed for the day," he said as he helped Ellen to her feet.

She flushed. "No, I'm fine. I can keep going," she insisted unsteadily, but Grabiner shook his head.

"You ought to rest a while, Miss Middleton," he advised. "After all, you were quite unwilling to continue classes on the mornings when Amoretta blew up her cauldron," Grabiner paused meaningfully as he glanced in Amoretta's direction. "Both times."

"Hieronymous is right," Amoretta said, taking Ellen's arm. "We'll go inside and relax for a while. Maybe I'll even put on a record."

"How delightful," Grabiner said, rolling his eyes. "I won't blame you if you feign unconsciousness now," he said to Ellen, and she laughed despite herself.

The he glanced over his shoulder at William, who still stood a few paces back, pensive and concerned, and quite excluded from their friendly family tableaux.

"If you'll excuse us, Mr. Danson," Grabiner said shortly, and then moved to escort Ellen inside.

Amoretta, concerned over Ellen's condition, did remember to invite him after them, and so he remained on the field for some time, tossing and catching one of the forgotten rubber balls.

* * *

The rest of the day passed quietly, and things continued on in what was now recognizable as the regular routine of Revane Cottage, despite Ellen's unfortunate accident. True to her word, Amoretta entertained her injured friend quietly for the rest of the afternoon, and they were eventually joined by William Danson, who at last followed them inside, even without invitation. He was cheerful and well-mannered - the perfect big brother, Amoretta might have said. He seemed particularly keen on being pleasant to Ellen, and did his best to chat with her amiably - likely, Amoretta thought, because she had had such an unpleasant experience. For her part, Ellen did her best to answer him normally, without weird, undue silences or her cheeks flushing in a telltale manner. She was embarrassed and ashamed that he had seen her poor performance in class, but William was so engaging that Ellen was soon distracted from her blunder, or so Amoretta thought.

The next day was an off-day, and Revane's inmates were left to their own devices, free to amuse themselves as they saw fit.

Grabiner spent the day holed up in his workshop, ostensibly because he had quite a lot of work to do, but more practically because it was a convenient way to avoid conversation with William.

Grabiner was seated at his desk, one booted foot propped absently against a half open drawer, his hat thrown idly to crown a stack of arcane reference books. The top of the scuffed and nicked old work table was loaded with books and papers in what appeared to be ambiguously subdued mayhem. But although his desk often seemed to have been recently struck by a tropical storm, Grabiner could put his hands on his things when he needed them. There was order to the table, and it was an order that he understood.

Occasionally he stopped to slowly stretch one or the other of his legs out against the floor. His calves ached, and his thighs were sore. Three months without running had left their mark on his person. He was now paying the price for his inactivity. He  _keenly regretted_  letting it get away from him the way one does when one aches for hours at a time. A regenerative spell would make him sleepy, and he had no time to sleep away his pains, so he simply suffered through it.

A cup of tea sat half-forgotten on a corner of the desk as he doggedly scratched away at his notes, stopping to occasionally reference one of the books laid out before him. He was writing out the salient points of the next day's class lecture, and while vaguely pushing around the idea of letting Amoretta continue to develop her strange magic circles. He was considering the sort of supervision she would require, the safeguards he would have to mount if he allowed her to continue fiddling with portal magic, when there was a careful knock at the door.

It was a knock he had learned to recognize: hesitation and deliberateness married together, like nails pressed into a palm.

"Come in," he called without immediately looking up.

He heard the door open and then close quietly, as if someone had taken great pains with it. The final sound was that of the bolt coming softly to rest in the door's mortise lock.

Afterwards there was silence.

At last he shifted in his chair and looked over his shoulder.

"Yes?" he asked evenly, one eyebrow raised. "Is there something I can do for you, Miss Middleton?"

Ellen clasped her hands in front of her and tucked her chin down slightly.

"I've come to apologize, sir," she said, her voice low.

Grabiner waved her off idly and turned his back on her again.

"Apologize for what?" he asked dismissively. "You've done nothing," he paused and eyed her sidewise over his shoulder. "That I know of. Generally speaking, you are at the bottom of my list of problems, Miss Middleton. You're working hard in class. Even if your progress doesn't satisfy you, it satisfies me. You're decorus and respectful, and much more well behaved than Amoretta. If you have anything to apologize for it's quite possibly making her look bad," he finished dryly.

"I have a hard time believing that," Ellen said in response and Grabiner slapped the desk lightly with his fingers.

"I know you have," he answered shortly, ""But that doesn't make it any less true."

"I made a stupid mistake yesterday," Ellen continued on, measured, "I cost us a full afternoon of practice. I'm sorry that I made such a mess of things. I know I'm holding Amoretta back, and I'm sorry to make you waste your time on me."

Grabiner had lifted the cup of cold tea to his lips as she spoke, and when she finished he grimaced and brandished the cup in her direction, turning around to look at her fully.

"If you mean to fish compliments out of me, Miss Middleton, I am afraid you'll find the waters quite devoid of life," he said shortly.

Ellen's cheeks went scarlet and he caught the movement of her hands as she balled them into fists. He had stirred her up by wounding her pride. Despite her abysmal opinion of herself, she was vain enough to resent being accused of hunting up flattery under false pretenses. Now she was ready to fight whomsoever was unlucky enough to fall in front of her. He had lit a pack of matches under her heel.

"That's not what I came here for, Professor," she answered. She was stewing in a mixture of resentment and indignation.

Grabiner pressed his lips together thinly and then set aside the teacup.

"No," he said slowly. "I imagine it's not. You're too intelligent to come to me hoping for comfort or praise. You've come to me hoping to be berated, because that's what you think you deserve: _mea cupla, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_." He mimed folding his hands in prayer and then waved her off again. "But I'm not going to indulge your morbid desire for chastisement and punishment. You've done nothing, Miss Middleton, besides apply yourself dutifully to the work I set before you."

"How can you say that?" Ellen demanded furiously, her brows drawn together. "Yesterday I knocked myself out cold during a field exercise. I'm not a good student. I'm an  _awful_ one. I struggle all the time, every day, trying to keep up with Amoretta in class. No matter how hard I try, I can't even seem to reach the goals I set for myself. I don't really know why you waste time on me, other than I'm Amoretta's friend, and maybe you pity me because I'm alone - but I didn't come in here to be insulted. I may be stupid and ordinary, Professor Grabiner, but I  _do not_  have a morbid desire for punishment!"

"You didn't knock yourself out," Grabiner cut in incisively. "I knocked you out. Trust me, Miss Middleton, if you had been foolish enough to have a spell explode on top of you then I would at this moment be  _considerably less cordial_." When she tried to disagree he snapped his bootheel sharply against the ground, causing her to jump. "You did make a mistake, Miss Middleton, I am not discounting that. You shielded when you ought to have diverted or returned the spell, or shifted the field. If that had been an examination, you would not have passed," he agreed. "I am sorry that you received a shock. If I had been appropriately watchful I could have grounded that spell myself before it hit you, once I saw you begin a shield." His eyes narrowed. "You know you're meant to turn an electrical spell in that situation. You don't have to tell me that you know it. I  _know_ that you do. I've had you turn several dozen similar spells before. You made an error," he said with a shrug. "Errors can be very dangerous, even deadly, but fortunately for you, this one was not. Be more careful in the future. That is the only advice I can give you." He turned his head to the side slightly. "As to why you can't seem to meet your own goals, the answer to that is very straightforward: You expect too much of yourself."

Ellen passed a hand in front of her face, as if to shield her eyes and then laughed bitterly.

"I suppose a person like me had better have lowered expectations," she said.

At this Grabiner got to his feet all at once and gave her a considerable whack on the head with the flat of his grimoire. The sound was startling in the otherwise quiet room and Ellen reflexively put her hands over her head, her face flushed.

"That is not what I meant," he said deliberately, and with a faint air of menace. He was  _looming_. "And I will not have you misunderstand me. You cannot meet your own goals  _because you set unreasonable goals._  You can't leap from nursery school to university in a day and with no intermediary steps. The fact that you labor under the delusion that you are a remedial student because you cannot do these things underscores nothing but your youth and ignorance." He put his hands in his pockets and turned away from her, so she was left staring at his back. "As for Amoretta, I am not surprised that you sometimes struggle to keep up with her mind, but understand that there are times when  _I struggle to do this myself_. That is what it is like to be with someone who is mad and inscrutable. If you wish to remain close to her, I suggest you get used to it."

He sighed.

"First the girl, and now you. It's enough to make me tear out my hair. Sometimes I honestly wish the both of you were less dutiful and conscientious, although I suppose if you were I would find you both intolerable," he lamented, looking at the ceiling of the workshop as if seeking guidance from a higher authority. "You are both so desperate to learn all it is you don't know that you underestimate what it is you  _do_  know. You dwell long on your faults and always neglect to figure in your strengths. You are neither of you stupid girls, nor are you ignorant beyond what is to be expected, given your age. No, you are not yet ready to take on all the ills of the world," he said declaratively, "But that doesn't mean that you will never be ready. I know you're impatient with your progress, but give yourself time to grow. Give yourself time to become yourself. In time you will be able to scale obstacles you currently find insurmountable."

"And Amoretta," Ellen said lowly, "Is she still becoming herself?"

Grabiner stared hard at the floor in front of him before admitting, "She is, and I'm half terrified of what she may become once she's crawled out of her old skin."

"She seems so far ahead of me," Ellen admitted in a very soft voice. "She's thoughtful, and kind, and she's  _so brave_. She's got an answer for everything, things that seems so impossibly complicated for me, she just does them. She has the faith to take chances, and the courage to realize them, once she's taken them. She's got an impossibly loving heart, and I'm a klutz about everything when it comes to actually talking to people. She never gets angry. She never gets frightened. When things are terrible, she smiles, and it's an  _honest_ smile, that's the most astonishing part of it. When I first met her all I could think was how silly she was - not silly in a bad way, just sweet and childish, sort of unable to take care of herself," Ellen shook her head. "But she can be so grown up it makes me feel shrill and petty. She makes mature decisions. She's always thinking about other people. It's not just that she's better than me in class, the only thing I'm really any good at. It's  _everything_. I don't even know why I'm telling you this," she laughed again and it was a sad sound, full of pain and regret. "It's like you said. I'm not stupid enough to imagine I'll get comfort or praise from you."

"Well, I won't lie to you," Grabiner said frankly, turning to face her again. He moved over to the desk that Ellen used when the workshop was a classroom and turned the chair around, pulling it toward his desk. "Sit down," he ordered.

Ellen sniffled and seemed unsure at first, but Grabiner gave her a level stare and so she sat, folding her hands nervously in her lap.

He fished around in his pockets for a moment, first one, and then the other, a look of mild aggravation crossing his face. At last he found what he was looking for and passed a wrapped bonbon into her hands.

"Eat that," he suggested. "It will make you feel better. Right now you're overwrought."

Ellen looked down at the chocolate in her hands in confusion. At last she unwrapped it and put it into her mouth. She wrinkled her nose a little, but continued to eat it obediently.

"It's bitter," she said.

Grabiner shrugged and gave her the brief, ghost of a smile.

"I suppose it is," he said.

Ellen dropped her eyes to the floor and stared at it quite steadily.

Grabiner sighed again and sat back down in his desk chair, leaning back in it.

"Miss Middleton, I will now bring to your attention several facts that while not secret, seemed to have escaped your notice. One," he said, counting on his pointer finger, "My wife may well be thoughtful, kind, and stupidly,  _offensively_ brave, but she does not have an answer for everything. She gets confused and uncertain as often as you do, which I am sure you well know, if you would only consult your own experience." He paused for a moment as he raised a second finger. "Two, while she does have many very endearing qualities, she most certainly does get angry as well as afraid. I can speak from experience, as I believe I am generally the well-deserved target of her ire when she gets angry, and because I have seen her crying when the hall light was out because the silly little ninny is afraid of the dark." He shook his head. "What I mean to say, Miss Middleton, is that it is understandable that you admire her. She is an admirable person. In many ways she is quite remarkable," He pressed his lips together and then looked at her very deliberately. "But so are you. Why else do you think Amoretta is always praising you? It isn't out of politeness and it isn't out of pity. It is because she has an eye to recognize the things about you that you do not realize yourself, or perhaps actively discount. If you think for half a second about Amoretta's character you will realize that what I say is true. As for why I bother to waste my time teaching you - that is not out of pity either. You have a great deal of potential, and I would much rather see that realized, rather than dashed against the ground. You are an interesting person," he said honestly, "And really very tolerable to be around."

It was his idea of a sincere compliment.

"I'm not worth that," Ellen said softly, staring at the faint lines in her palms. "I'm not worth the trouble. I'm not worth any trouble. I'll never be beautiful. I'll never be outstanding. I'll never be remarkable. I can't even imagine myself being successful at anything. I'm a mess," she confessed into her hands.

"Yes," he agreed absently. "You are a mess."

She looked up sharply at that, her eyes shining with tears and hurt, but she found him wistful and reflective, rather than vindictive.

"In that way," he said, "You'll find we're not so very different, Ellen."

Ellen flushed rosy and stared hard at the ground again. She did not know what to do with herself. What she wanted most was to hide behind the safety and severity of 'Miss Middleton,' but she found she could not. If he was disturbed by the fact that he had called her by her given name, he gave no indication. He was apparently considering something entirely different.

"The stupidest thing about you is that you have no ability to recognize your own talents," he said very deliberately, and the flush was driven from her cheeks as effectively as if he had doused her with a bucket of ice water.

Ellen sighed herself, and then closed her eyes.

"But I'm not good at anything," she said quietly. "Nothing except reading books and studying."

"That's not a terrible thing to be good at in and of itself," Grabiner said dryly and Ellen's eyes snapped back open, her lower lip pushing out threateningly. Grabiner raised a hand to stay her indignation. "It's not. If you want to be a scholar, it does help to be fond of books," he said frankly. "But you are good at a number of other things besides."

"Like what?" Ellen demanded.

Grabiner gave her a brief sardonic smile. "Now you're fishing for compliments, but as I am feeling indulgent, I will tell you what you want to know."

Ellen's cheeks puffed out as she readied a retort, but Grabiner cut her off before she could begin.

"You have a highly analytical mind," he said. "You're good at organizing information and at recalling it. You have excellent problem solving skills. You're very diligent and methodical in the way you go about investigating a new circumstance or situation. You don't often take things for granted. You're cautious and you're frugal when it comes to spending your own magic. If you can solve a problem without resorting to magic, you will. You're very conservative on that account, but that doesn't hinder you. You are learning when it  _is_ necessary to use spells, and your judgement is getting better with every practical class. I am very satisfied with your performance, Miss Middleton, even if you are a Gretel," he said with a brief, subdued smile.

Ellen's brows drew together again. "A Gretel?" she asked in confusion.

"A witch who solves problems without magic," Grabiner explained shortly. "Surely you're familiar with the story of Hansel and Gretel," he said, raising an eyebrow.

"Of course," Ellen said immediately, "But what does that have to do with - "

"You're not familiar with the story as it relates to our traditions then," he said, then recounted briefly, "A boy and witch-girl are abandoned by their parents in the wildwood. At first, she leads them back home by following a path she has laid with shining stones. When they are abandoned again and their pockets are empty, she and her brother wander the wildwood, cold and hungry. They come upon a house made of hot food: sugar and ham and pigeon and bread, and although the witch-girl Gretel senses that it cannot be but a trap for the unwary, she cannot stop her brother from eating, he is so famished. The owner of the house, a hagzusa - a particularly nasty sort of cannibalistic monster that is born when a witch is consumed by her own lust and greed - lures the brother inside, and Gretel is forced to follow him, because she knows he will be eaten without her help. The hagzusa locks her brother in a cage to fatten him up, and decides to keep Gretel as her own apprentice. Of course, as you are familiar, the hag ends up in the oven courtesy of a push from Gretel, who then releases her brother. Gretel at last casts a spell that leads them both to their fortunes. Everything ends happily, and Gretel marries a prince or something, I don't remember," he said, waving her off again. "The gist of the story is that Gretel is a witch most famous for  _not_ using her magic. There are dozens of other stories about her: how she outwitted ogres, stole treasures from giants, and defeated several more hagzusas, always with her helpless brother in tow. He was always getting turned into a deer, or a swan, or a goat, or a bucket of coal or other such nonsense. It's astonishing she had the patience to keep rescuing him."

"Oh," Ellen said, as if thoughtfully digesting this information. "I hadn't realized that Gretel was a witch."

Grabiner nodded again. "Yes. I've got a couple of collections of fairy stories with Gretel in them upstairs in the library. Ask Amoretta to get them for you later, if you like. She's wild about fairy tales," he said, rolling his eyes. "I'm sure she'll be able to find them for you in a moment."

"Then it isn't wrong," Ellen said slowly, "To try and do things without magic."

Grabiner rolled his eyes again. "Of course it isn't wrong, you dolt. Witches aren't meant to leave their brains on the shelf, gathering dust, and just cycle through all the spells they know until they hit one that isn't  _completely inappropriate_  for the situation."

"Well then," Ellen cried out indignantly, "Why did you fail me for the fifth exam, when I solved the puzzle and escaped the dungeon without using magic?" she demanded.

"I did not  _fail_ you, Miss Middleton," Grabiner said testily. "I simply refused to reward you with merits. You did not fail the exam, you simply did not pass it. You  _completed_ it."

"Now you're just playing with semantics," Ellen said with a scowl, crossing her arms over her chest. "It  _ruined_ my record. That was the only exam I didn't receive passing marks for."

"And I'm sure that's a great tragedy," Grabiner said dryly. His tone clearly indicated just how great a tragedy he thought it was. "As I have told you a dozen times before, I failed you on that exam because it was specifically a  _magic_ examination. No matter how fabulous your spelling, if I gave you an algebra test, I would not consider it when arriving at your score."

"Professor!" Ellen said heatedly.

"I'm not going to retroactively alter your records, Miss Middleton, not even if you bring me testimony from a member of the Council of Ten," Grabiner said with a note of finality. Then he paused and drummed his fingers against his desk before chuckling quietly, glancing over his shoulder at her. "Although I am glad to see that you're feeling better."

And as Ellen's brief burst of anger cooled, she realized that she was. It was not a perfect solution. She had not solved all her problems. She had not really even begun to grapple with the difficult problem of learning to love herself.

But here in Grabiner's study, with the taste of bitter chocolate still under her tongue, she had learned something new about herself, something that she could like, even if she could like nothing else.

She was a Gretel.

* * *

Around the time that Grabiner was walloping Ellen between the ears, there was another clandestine conference occurring. Amoretta and William were closeted in the cowshed, engaged in a combination of assessing the shed's suitability as a model train roundhouse and attempting to determine William's chances of becoming Grabiner's apprentice. The former seemed very possible, while Amoretta was of the opinion that the latter was currently about as likely as a cow jumping over the moon. She had resolved to remain positive, though. If she started dragging around listlessly, then there was no telling how that would affect William.

He had been slightly reticent since Ellen's accident the day previous, and Amoretta was worried about him. Grabiner had been civil since Amoretta had accepted William as a house guest, but he had made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with the eldest Danson son. It was really unsurprising that William had become a little distant. She didn't think it was a thing that other people might have noticed, but William had taken her into confidence, so she felt she had a pretty good read on the situation.

Probably he was getting exhausted. Around Ellen he continued to play the part of perfect, caring, handsome, thoughtful upperclassman. When he was alone with Amoretta he was more frank, and decidedly more self-deprecating. Sometimes he was even self-deprecating about being self-deprecating, but that was something that she had dealt with before, so she just pushed it off industriously with a broom as often as possible. The deeper she let him slip into the mire of self-loathing, the less likely an apprenticeship would materialize out of the fog, like a boat waiting to pick up shipwrecked sailors. It was both a practical and a compassionate action. He would be no good for working toward his goal if all he did was sit around thinking about how awful he was, and besides that, she hated to see him throwing himself so relentlessly on the broken glass of his doubts and fears.

William denied that he was the person that everyone loved and idolized. Amoretta thought that was fine, but it made her strongly want to discover the William that  _was_.

Generally speaking, the cowshed was filled with old junk. In this way, it was not altogether different from the attic, Cord confided.

"You'll discover that that's a thing about old money," Cord had told the both of them with a smile. "Witchfolk especially. They never want to throw anything away. They're extremely proud of their heritage, and of their traditions. Rather than throwing old things away, they just stuff them into the attic, and that is how antiques come into being. The very wealthy are never at a loss for space, so they keep practically everything."

"Are there lots of interesting antiques in the attic here?" Amoretta wanted to know, suddenly overcome with curiosity.

"Definitely," Cord said as he gave her a wink. "But if you want real treasures you'd better hope the master takes you on a visit to the main house." Then he paused, suddenly very serious, "But you do remember, madam, that you aren't to touch anything without proper supervision, right?" he asked earnestly. "There are sometimes very dangerous relics forgotten in the corners and eaves of witch houses."

"I know, I know. I could prick my finger on a spinning wheel and die," Amoretta answered obediently, "And that would certainly put a kink in everyone's plans."

Cord laughed, "I know Tansy would be in fits if that happened. She may not be that fond of you, but you are the lady of the household, and you have not yet produced the next generation. If you did away with yourself, it would probably mark the end of the Grabiner family line, unless the master were to marry  _again_. The Viscount Montague is past fertility, and the heirs of the family not being known for their longevity, the master is the very last of them. I have to admit," Cord said, shaking his head, "That I wouldn't much like it either. I've gotten very accustomed to the house, and to you, madam."

"Well, it's not on my to do list," Amoretta answered him with a distracted smile. "Kicking the bucket, I mean."

It was something she had not yet considered. Of course, if she died unexpectedly, then that would certainly be the end of the family line since the gimmal oath that bound them would drag her husband after her into the grave. Their oath was not yet common knowledge, so it was perhaps not surprising that Cord had wondered about the unlikely event of Grabiner marrying for a third time, if only to secure the line.

 _I guess I really do give people the impression that I'm two steps away from being hit by a bus, or something,_  she thought to herself.  _I can't imagine how bad it would be if I wasn't lucky._

What Amoretta had not yet considered was this: with her as the lady of the family, wife of the last heir, the line was as good as dead anyway (barring extra-marital liasons, which she really did not want to entertain).

If Grabiner was the last of his line, then it was naturally expected that he produce some sort of issue. Given Amoretta's circumstances, that issue could clearly not be of their own making, even in the hazy, indistinct future of her twenties. When Amoretta had mentioned the (im)possibility of children to Grabiner previously, he had been kind, but dismissive, and Amoretta had been at least mildly reassured. But that had been a discussion about personal happiness and fulfillment, not the continuation of family bloodlines. Given her husband's attitudes toward his familial responsibilities, she imagined he was probably not particularly concerned with her infertility in regards to the continuation of the line, but Amoretta was not naive enough to imagine that other people would accept her inability to bear children so graciously. Based on his letter, her father-in-law was quite ready for a string of grandchildren. Even if he was polite enough to wait until she finished her schooling, after that grace period expired he was sure to become impatient with a nursery that was bound to remain empty. She was already ill-fit to be Baroness Halifax on all other counts, and this was yet another nail in the coffin. The press were already speculating about pregnancy, and in regards to this she was assured of being a continual disappointment. The only way she could deliver sweet-tempered, curly-haired tots was if she discovered them in a cabbage patch.

It was another wrinkle. Being an adult was terribly complicated. Being a wife was terribly complicated, particularly when one's husband had a title, an estate, a bad temper, a dead wife, and an awful scandal following him around like a string of tin cans tied to his tail.

Amoretta sat down on a box pensively as Cord departed for work in the cottage. After she and William finished clearing the cowshed out, the butler would see that it was properly cleaned. This left William and Amoretta on their own again, and able to speak freely with one another.

"You know," she confided in him, "Sometimes I feel like just running away from home."

William's brows drew together briefly. "You mean, run away from Professor Grabiner?" he asked carefully, "Are things not going well?" He frowned, "You know, even if you have entered into a marriage contract, you're under no obligation to stay with him if it isn't - if it isn't - "

"No, no," Amoretta denied rolling her eyes. "That's not what I meant! Why does everyone assume that's what I mean straight off? Every time I complain about a funny feeling in my little toe, everyone's absolutely sure that he's the cause of it. I wonder how many times I'll have to tell people I'm happy with him before they start to believe it," she said with a sigh. "No, I mean, if I ran away, obviously I'd take him with me," Amoretta explained patiently, as if this were a foregone conclusion. "I want to run away from everything else: newspapers, titles, bloodlines, kobolds,  _gens_ Grabiner, and most definitely  _Damien Ramsey Balamb_. All of this was so much easier when all I had to do was plan bake sales and play soccer in the sports club. It's not being married to Hieronymous that's the hard part," she paused and shook her head briefly, "Well, sometimes it's the hard part," she amended. "But mostly it's  _everybody else_  that's the problem."

"You already ran away from school," William pointed out. "And it's hard to get more secluded than a warded demi-plane, unless you went on the lam or something."

Amoretta sighed, "I guess I can't hope for much more than that. Hieronymous is very good to me. Besides, no one chooses their circumstances in life." She lightly slapped her own cheeks. "I need to stop complaining so much. My life really isn't that bad."

William shook his head. "No, I'm sure it's been very difficult," he said. "After all, you're very young." He flushed and was clearly attempting to look anywhere other than her face. "And I'm sure you weren't really prepared for," he stopped and cleared his throat in an attempt to cover his discomfort, " _Everything_."

Amoretta stood up suddenly, planting her hands on her hips. "William Danson, stop tiptoeing around things like you're a ballerina in lace slippers. My being young isn't what's making this hard. I'm sure it'd be hard for anybody, regardless of their qualifications. Besides, I'm not that young. It's not like Hieronymous went and married a twelve-year-old. And I may be inexperienced, but that's not a quality that's unique to sixteen-year-olds. Anyway, I'll be seventeen in," she counted on her fingers, "Four months. Stop treating me like I'm some kind of unfortunate victim of fate. My life is what I make of it.  _I choose,_  William. I don't just let things happen to me. I married Hieronymous Grabiner because I was willing, not because I was forced. It would take more than bonds of old magic and the threat of death to get me to do something I did not want to do, and that's something you can be certain of."

At that moment, she seemed perfectly capable of warping reality to comply to her wishes. She was afraid of neither death, nor taxes.

The air inside the cowshed had crackled up with Amoretta's suddenly overwhelming presence while she had been speaking, and William was obliged to fall back a step, moving to sit on a barrel deferentially, ceding the floor entirely to Amoretta. It was a reflexive gesture. Amoretta already owned this space in its entirety.

"You're a very remarkable person," William said. "I'm sorry to have offended you again. I didn't mean to give you the idea I thought you were a victim. You're really very capable."

Amoretta frowned. "For a schoolgirl," she said, eyeing him heavily.

"What?" William asked in confusion.

"That's what you were thinking, isn't it?" Amoretta supplied, her mouth set to a fine line. "'You're really very capable, _for a schoolgirl._ '"

"Well," William hesitated, "You  _are_ a schoolgirl," he pointed out. "You've only just finished your first year at Iris Academy. Most girls your age wouldn't be ready for the kinds of responsibilities you've accepted."

Amoretta eyed him with a dead level gaze, one she had acquired from her sardonic, overly critical husband.

"And I suppose you're an expert on teenaged girls," Amoretta said dryly, crossing her arms over her chest.

William flushed again. "Of course I'm not," he denied.

"Then how is it that you seem to be so certain of what teenaged girls can and cannot do?" Amoretta demanded.

"I'm just basing it on my own experience - " he tried.

"Your own experience as a teenaged girl?" she asked blandly.

"My own experience as a  _teenager_ ," William shot back. "I can remember what I was like a few years ago. I was stupid and childish and selfish - "

"Who's to say anything's changed?" Amoretta asked critically, and it was like a headsman's axe falling. William looked ashen, and then he turned away from her.

Amoretta sighed. "I am sorry, William. Being horribly blunt is a habit I seem to have picked up from Hieronymous. That didn't come out exactly the way I meant it," she apologized, moving to crowd onto the barrel with him. He still had not turned to look at her.

 _Well, I deserve that,_ she thought.  _That was an awfully rotten way to put things._

"It's easy to look back on the you that you were yesterday and see all the problems. But the you that you were yesterday is still the same you that you are today," Amoretta tried to explain. "You're still the same person, full of faults and treasures. Of course you've changed since then, but that's because people change all the time, every day. We're always in constant motion, like electrons. Of course, there are big things that affect us profoundly, but even those things really change us over time, little by little. They're really only watersheds in hindsight, because humans like to make stories out of everything. They like beginnings, middles, and endings. But people aren't easily compartmentalized," Amoretta said, shaking her head. "It's not like you reach a certain point in your life and then suddenly you've stopped being a kid and you become an adult. You only think you were stupid when you were sixteen because now you're twenty. When you're twenty two, I bet you'll look back on today and think that you were dumb and silly, but it isn't true. It wasn't true when you were sixteen, it isn't true now, and it won't be true then. That's just an illusion cast by time. Of course, we all make mistakes. We all do things backward, or crosswise, or catty-wumpus, but that's just because we're human beings. Nobody does everything right all the time, and fortunately we have the opportunity to learn by trying lots and lots of things. People who think teenagers are some kind of weird special case just haven't been teenagers in a while, so they've forgotten what it's like." She elbowed him gently. "Even you, apparently."

"Maybe you think that way because you're still a teenager," William pointed out, finally turning to look back at her, crammed together as they were on the barrel.

"Probably," Amoretta said with a grin, "But I hope I never stop thinking this way. Oh, I don't mind changing. I like it! I want to keep changing more and more, to become the sort of person that I really want to be. But I want to always be trying my hardest to understand other people. I want to always be listening hard. I want to always be thinking hard about what other people are feeling. That's part of who I want to be 'when I grow up,'" she laughed.

William frowned. "I thought you were claiming there was no 'growing up,'" he pointed out.

"There isn't," Amoretta agreed. "There's just growing. But what I really meant was sort of, my generalized plan for the future:  _who I want to be_. I'd really like to be that person right now! It would make a lot of things easier," she admitted with a shrug. "But nothing happens overnight. The headmistress told me 'The man who wants to move a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.' That's from  _the Analects_ , and I'm pretty sure that it's very true. Someday I'm sure I'll become the person I want to be, but until then, I'll just have to keep trying. Isn't that why you're here? Because you have an idea of who you want to be? Only your idea is Hieronymous, right?"

William leaned back against the wall behind them both.

"I certainly don't want to stay who I am," William said flatly.

"I think you're probably always going to be William Danson," Amoretta said gently, elbowing him again. "But I don't think you have to worry about staying the same. If you want to change things about yourself, then that's good. I think wanting to change things, and really  _understanding_ what it is you want to change, is the first big step."

They were both silent for several minutes, and Amoretta began to kick her feet against the barrel. At last. she said, "William, do you mind if I ask you sort of a personal question? Don't feel obliged to let me. I'm just trying to bring some things into focus for myself."

William moved from the barrel and went to sit on the box that Amoretta had vacated. He stared at the floor for a minute and Amoretta could see that he was thinking things over.

"All right," he said. "Go ahead and ask."

"When Ellen asked you to the Dark Dance," Amoretta began thoughtfully, tapping her finger against her lip, "Why did you say 'no'?"

This was apparently not the question William had been expecting and he looked thoroughly confused for several seconds.

At last he said, "I can tell you what I told her then. I think of you and Ellen the same way I think of V. You're all really sweet kids, but you're all kids. You're like my little sisters." He paused to look at Amoretta sidelong. "Don't take this the wrong way," he pleaded. "I'm not trying to patronize you. It just wouldn't have been right."

It was Amoretta's turn to be confused. "What wouldn't have been right?" she asked. "It's not like the Dark Dance is like the May Day Ball, and even if it was, it's still just a dance. I mean, it's fine if you just don't find her attractive, even though that means I think you're sort of a dope," she finished apologetically.

"Look, it's just not right for seniors to encourage freshmen. There's too much of a power disparity," he said. "It's taking advantage."

Amoretta pulled her knees up against her chest and wondered aloud, "Are you sure you really want to be like Hieronymous Grabiner? Anyway, I thought you weren't actually thoughtful and responsible. You told me that was just something you pretended to be for other people."

William frowned again. "I wish you would take things seriously," he said.

"I am taking them seriously," Amoretta insisted. "I told you, I'm trying to bring things into focus for myself. I'm not saying you were wrong to reject Ellen, I mean, particularly if you didn't want to go to the dance with her. I have to admit, she was pretty starstruck with you, but then, so was I with Hieronymous," Amoretta said with a nonchalant shrug. "Or, not so much starstruck. I was more  _hit by a freight train._  But I think that's not terribly uncommon when you meet somebody that you find attractive,  _and I found him attractive_." She paused and thought about things, ignoring William's mild discomfort, "All right. I think I understand what you thought about Ellen before the Dark Dance, but that was back in October. Would you mind telling me what you think of her now? Not like in a love-love romantic way. I mean purely practically, what do you think of her?"

He was silent for a moment, thinking. Then he abruptly got up and began pacing the cowshed.

"Let me ask you a question first," William said at last, a little hesitantly. Then he took a deep breath and asked, "What do you think of Damien Ramsey?"

"Well, I don't love him," Amoretta answered automatically, then shook her head slightly, "Sorry, it's just that based on his letters, he seems to think I do. Or will. Something like that, anyway. But I don't. I'm a little afraid of him, I guess," she smiled weakly, "Although I'm trying my best not to be. I suppose what I want most is to understand him. He's a complicated person, and I don't think he's very nice, but it doesn't matter whether I think he's nice or not. We're all tangled up together because of this," she placed her hand over her shoulder. "I've got to understand him if I'm going to take care of myself - and anybody else, for that matter."

William let out a sigh. "Honestly, you're pretty monstrous," he said. "Like a superhero whose power is being nice to people, whether or not they deserve it."

"Thank you?" Amoretta asked with a mixture of amusement and indignation. "Everyone is always telling me things like that, and they sort of sound like compliments, but then they sort of don't. I've just decided to accept them all, regardless. Honestly, I don't care about who deserves what. I care about what works and what doesn't," she said with a shrug.

"That's a  _different_ way of thinking," he admitted slowly as he came to stand in front of her, his hands in his pockets.

"Well, I do paddle my own canoe," Amoretta agreed, "And I'm generally satisfied by the results." She cocked her head to the side. "Did that answer your question? I mean, I can try to talk some more about Damien, if that's what you want. It'd mostly be speculation though. I don't have a very good read on him. So much has happened that I'm wary about trusting my instincts on him. I don't really know enough, yet. I don't really understand him enough. I feel pretty stupid, because I was right next to him all that time, and I didn't notice much about the real Damien. I saw what I wanted to see. Not only is that dangerous, but it's also really selfish. I'm not saying that it's my fault that I got hurt. He obviously had no right to do that to me, regardless of the circumstances. Nothing I did or didn't do  _asked_ him to do this to me," she said, closing her eyes briefly. "I was blind to see what was really going on, because I'd already written a story for Damien and myself, and I was just playing it out. Of course, I understand now that the story I had created suited his purposes pretty well," she smiled weakly, "At this point, I can't sift out what was truth and what was fiction, because it all fit together so well into the story I wanted. I think that I know in my heart that if I'm really going to understand what it is that I have to do, then I'm going to have to go near him again, and I'm terribly afraid of that. It's not something I want to do, but I don't see any other way of solving the problems I have, outside of letting Hieronymous just  _kill_ him. And I don't want that," she said, shaking her head. "I don't want to make Hieronymous do that. He carries enough already. And I don't want Damien to die," she said with a weak laugh. "I'm not interested in vengeance," she said slowly. "I don't think I understand the idea of revenge very well. I don't want to punish him. I don't want Damien to be unhappy. I just want him to leave me alone - to leave us both alone."

William made a slight huffing sound through his nose that might have been a laugh. "Hail Amoretta, full of grace," he said with a smile, then reached out to ruffle her hair. "I could probably use somebody like you in my life. Somebody who knows the sun is still out there, even when it's cloudy."

"Even when it blows up a hurricane. After all, a rainbow has faith to turn circles in the sky, even during stormy weather," Amoretta agreed with a laugh and then raised one finger to wag it at him, "I'm already taken," she reminded, her smile quirking up at the corner. "Besides, I thought you had sworn off girls, sixteen year olds in particular."

William flushed a little, "I didn't mean it like that - " he protested.

"Of course you didn't," she said dismissively, waving his discomfort off lightly, "Anyway, you were going to tell me what you think about Ellen."

William nodded once seriously before commencing to speak, choosing his words carefully. "She's shy," he said. "Maybe a little meek? Steady. Dependable. She's got a mild temper and a good work ethic. She's very solid."

Amoretta sat back on the barrel. "And Donald?" she asked. "How would you describe Donald?"

William frowned. "He avoids his responsibilities. He never takes anything seriously. He goofs around all the time. He won't commit to anything. He's selfish."

"And Virginia?" Amoretta prompted.

"She's a good kid," William repeated almost automatically.

Amoretta sighed and shook her head.

"I think I've understood something," she said, and got to her own feet.

"Virginia isn't a kid," she said.

"She'll always be a kid to me," William protested.

"Then it won't be very long before you don't know her at all," Amoretta said, sadly shaking her head. "Virginia's playful, funny, a little bratty, spoiled, a slob, more loyal than a hound dog, but she can also be shy and really awkward. Just because you don't see that about her doesn't mean it's not there. She and Donald fight like cats, and that's not good for either of them, and it's not all Donald's fault either," Amoretta insisted passionately. "Sure, there are childish things about Virginia, but she isn't a kid any more than I'm a kid, anymore than you're a kid. And Donald  _does_ commit to things. He commits to his friends. He's also really kind, although he's embarrassed about showing it. He isn't selfish at all, really. He just wants to be loved and respected by the people he cares about. He doesn't want to be thrown out like moldy laundry. And Ellen," Amoretta laughed with a touch of incredulous amazement, "Ellen is the exact  _opposite_ of meek. She's got a wild temper when she's riled, so I suggest you don't make her angry. Even Hieronymous is a little bit scared of her. Did you know she likes punk rock music? She's sensitive and thoughtful, but she's also very  _deliberate_. If I didn't know her so well, I'd be worried about her enemies."

"Ellen has enemies?" William asked blankly. "Who?"

"Angela Kirsch, for one," Amoretta said. "You've got that in common. And Damien. And Hieronymous was her sworn enemy before they made friends with one another. It's still a little rocky, sometimes."

"I had no idea," William said, rubbing at his temples with one hand.

"I know," Amoretta said shortly, and when he looked up at her, she shrugged. "You aren't really seeing the people around you. You're making them into who you want them to be, just like I did with Damien. That's dangerous, and it's also lonely. The people around you don't exist to be the set-pieces of your life. They're not just decoration for the story you tell yourself. They're all real people. Everybody is weird and complicated, and they take a lot of time and effort to understand. You want other people to understand you, but it's important to try and make an effort to understand them too. You can't keep other people in little boxes. They aren't neatly packaged for your convenience. They're not who you decide they are. They are themselves."

Feeling thoroughly chastised, William meekly bowed his head and answered only, "Yes ma'am."

Amoretta patted his head comfortingly, and after a few moments passed, she realized he was silently crying. She rubbed his back until he had cried himself out, then he passed his sleeve in front of his eyes before standing up.

"I guess we better get this place cleaned up," he said, his voice still a little raw from the tears.

"I guess we better," Amoretta agreed with a friendly smile.

As he bent to pick up a rusted trowel, he had only one question.

"What made you say I was an expert about model trains in the first place," William wanted to know.

Amoretta shrugged. "Oh, it's just something Donald said, once," she answered absently.

"What?" William asked in confusion.

Amoretta waved him off. "Don't worry about it. It's not important."

"What made Donald think I knew anything about trains?" he asked, still perplexed.

For this, there was a very obvious answer.

"Outdated information," she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: For everyone who has been patiently waiting for this chapter since June, I do apologize. We had a very unexpected death in the family in July that affected me very profoundly. I couldn't really write much of anything for months. I was left spinning circles in the air, which was very frustrating. But like everything, when you're knocked down, you've got to get back up. I'm on my feet again, and I hope you enjoy this most recent development in the story. I had wanted to get this posted in time for the two year anniversary, but the chapter kept getting longer and longer, and finally I had to cut it in half (after already cutting this plot arc into thirds, good grief). I'm working on a schedule again, so updates should be regular instead of weird and chaotic. Thank you all for being patient with me. I am incredibly thankful for all my readers. Without you, this story would not be possible.
> 
> All my love,
> 
> Gabi


	7. Six: Sudden Darkness, But I Can See

The next day Ellen and Amoretta had class as usual, although rather  _unusually_ Grabiner interrupted their regular schedule in order to have a special practical class in the afternoon. Both girls were full of curiosity at this breach in their clockwork routine, although they expressed it in their own unique ways. Amoretta was bouncing slightly in place, while Ellen checked her wand three times, and then rearranged the obligatory box of snacks.

Grabiner's conference with Ellen the day previous had put the idea into his head, he said. Privately, he thought it would be a good opportunity to bolster Ellen's confidence in herself, particularly given her recent practical accident. Beyond that, he was  _interested in observing what happened_. It was an experiment. He wished to gather information, and the present circumstances gave him the perfect chance to do so.

He called Cord out to the training yard and then commenced to explain himself.

"We'll have a pair duel to the first down," Grabiner's eyes flicked to Amoretta and Ellen briefly as he hastened to explain. "That's the first person the judge, that would be Cord in this case, deems incapacitated. A duel to the first down isn't about injuring your opponent. It's about neutralizing them. We will take precautions to ensure that no one is seriously injured, although some basic first aid may be required after the duel finishes. Cord can provide that himself, if necessary, should we all end up incapacitated in some weird collusion of circumstances. As the instructor, I will exercise my prerogative of selecting the teams myself. Miss Suzerain, you'll be with me," he said, nodding once in her direction. "Mr. Danson will be with Miss Middleton, in any configuration they find acceptable."

"Sounds safe enough," Amoretta said, "I don't like fighting, but it is important to get experience, after all. I'm used to Ellen, but adding William to the mix does make it more interesting. I don't mind, so long as we're not  _really_ trying to hurt one another."

"We're not," Grabiner said shortly. "This is a classroom exercise, the same as any other," his eyes moved to consider William heavily. "Mr. Danson's presence affords us the rare opportunity for me to observe the both of you in action, to test you both - " he corrected himself, "All three of you - myself. Think of this as something like a field examination." He looked at Ellen steadily, "You don't have to win to pass, and indeed, I do not expect you to win. Just show me how much you have learned, and that will be quite satisfactory."

"I'll do my best," Ellen said, and her anxiety and determination were both plain to see.

"This will be our field of honor," Grabiner said with a sweep of his arm. He uttered a few words and the boundaries of the training yard were lit up by blue lines and spelltext. "If you stray outside the lines of the field, naturally your pair forfeits the duel. I do this in hopes of limiting potential property damage," he intoned dryly, putting one arm lightly around Amoretta's shoulders. "This is where we live, after all. Is that satisfactory to you?"

"Yes sir," William answered seriously.

Ellen nodded furiously.

Grabiner turned his attention to his diminutive wife briefly. "You, madam, are still forbidden to teleport yourself."

"Aww, really? Can't I teleport myself even a  _little_?" Amoretta began, but Grabiner shook his head deliberately.

"I put that restriction on you for a reason, and I have no intentions of lifting it until you've completed your coursework," he said levelly. His eyes shifted to the other pair and he said, "As for myself, I intend to restrict my usage to Class C unregulated magic. Consider it a handicap. You of course may use any spell that you can adequately handle, but do try to use sense and good judgement. I have no interest in scraping the remains of either of you off of the ground. This is a duel to first down, not to the death," he said, eyeing them both critically, "So please make your spell selections accordingly. Once I have finished the arrangements, you'll have one minute to confer with your partner and take your position, and then Cord will signal the beginning of the duel and we'll have ten minutes of combat. If we have not reached a satisfactory conclusion by the time ten minutes have elapsed, then the duel will conclude in a draw. If any individual wishes to surrender at any time, they need only call 'forfeit.' If you cannot speak and wish to forfeit, then please place your hands on your head and stand still. Is that all suitably clear?"

"As crystal, sir," William answered smartly.

Ellen nodded again.

"Before we begin, I'm going to cast some heavy fire protection spells on the two of you," he said, drawing his wand. "I will not use any direct elemental attack magic apart from fire, because I have no desire to kill either of you, particularly accidentally. I am obviously showing my hand in doing this, but I assure you, I am not being duplicitous. I do of course intend to win, but I am the instructor, and it is my responsibility to ensure that no one gets seriously injured in this exercise, even at the cost of the element of surprise."

"Well, that seems fair," Amoretta said with a smile. "You are a heavyweight boxing with rookies," she glanced sideways at William. "No offense," she said, waving her hands at him.

He colored slightly pink, but he shook his head. "None taken," he assured her.

Grabiner completed the two protection spells and then said, "All right, one minute begins now. No magic until the sound of the bell."

William moved off immediately, glancing over his shoulder at Ellen to make sure she was following him. Once they had put a safe distance between themselves and the Grabiners, he turned to her and said, "Okay Ellen." He could see how nervous she was, and so tried his best to take the edge off. "Take a deep breath. You're looking a little blue. It's all right. We can do this," he insisted.

"We've got to get the field to water as quickly as possible," she said, and the information burst out of her like water over a levy. "He's told us he'll only use fire spells, and we've got to weaken those as much as possible. Amoretta won't use any offensive magic, so it's the professor who's going to take one or the both of us out. If we're not incredibly careful,  _he will wipe the floor with us_."

William wasn't so sure about shifting the field immediately. "I don't know," he said. "I specialize with fire too, and he's given us an advantage by putting strong protection spells on us. It's not like I think I can go head to head with the professor in a firefight, but if you put the field in water then that's going to weaken my strongest attack magic too." He saw her bite her lip. She obviously disagreed with him, but was unwilling to further voice her dissent. He shook his head, "You know what? Use your own judgement. You're a great student, and you've been learning from him directly. If you think we need to shift the field, shift the field."

"I think it's the only way we'll last more than a couple of minutes, even if he only uses Class C magic," Ellen said lowly. "If we have any chance of winning, we can't let the two of them carry the momentum. We've got to down Amoretta as quickly as possible. She's no slouch, but she's definitely the weak link there. She doesn't move very quickly, so she'll limit the ground he can cover, and her stamina still isn't very good, so she should be the first of us to tire out."

William shook his head. "This is a ten minute duel," he said, "Not an endurance test. Even if her stamina is poor, we can't count on her tiring herself out. We're going to have to target her. You said she doesn't use offensive magic?"

Ellen nodded. "That's right," she said, "The most aggressive thing she ever uses is a sleep spell, and we probably won't see one from her in this match - but don't think that means she's helpless. We're lucky that the professor won't let her teleport herself around the field, otherwise she could put herself wherever she wanted to be, and that's a lot of pressure. You're not going to understand her presence projection until you have to deal with it yourself. The good part of this situation is that if  _she_ can't teleport, then I don't believe  _he_ will either, since he won't leave her unprotected. You're still going to have to keep on your toes to avoid her adversarial teleportation, though, or you'll find yourself in the upstairs bathroom, and that'll be the match," Ellen warned. "Also, her shield spells are very fast and nearly impossible to break. She's been practicing them with the professor for months now. They're so quick that you won't see them coming. The same goes for her interrupts. She can be an incredibly annoying opponent. She's going to be even worse with Professor Grabiner protecting her."

"That's why we need to focus on eliminating her," William said with a nod. "We've got to keep Professor Grabiner busy - distracted, hopefully - and then take her out as quickly as we can. Probably what would be best is an assassination style strike: one decisive hit that counts, since you make it sound like we probably won't get more than one chance. If we can shake them apart, take advantage of a hole in their stances, and we hit her once,  _hard_ , that should be the duel in our favor."

Ellen frowned. "I don't think it will be that easy, but we certainly can't win a battle of attrition."

"Okay then," William said with a nod. "I'll try to engage with the professor enough to provide you with an opening as the vanguard. I'll be depending on you for support."

Ellen looked a little uncomfortable, which William took to be nerves, and he gave her a bright smile.

"It's all right," he assured her again. "We can do this."

She swallowed hard and then nodded.

As the time for strategizing fell away and the sounding of the bell loomed near, on the other side of the field, Amoretta and Grabiner were mostly quiet. He did not need to reassure her with the words, _I'll protect you,_  as they were implicit to his being. He would not let her fall. She studied his silent back contemplatively. It was warm. Even with silence reigning between them, even when they were facing down opponents, he was so warm, gentle, thoughtful. As they stood together, Grabiner said only one thing.

"You lead."

The sound of the bell in Cord's hands was like the sharp retort of a starting pistol, and before the sound had stilled to silence all four, witch and wizard alike, were on the move.

Grabiner had waited for Amoretta to move, and then after ascertaining her direction, had moved to cover her. William, attempting to read Grabiner, had begun to move clockwise from his position, but this put him on a direct collision course with Grabiner. He was rushing right into the pair of them.

Ellen's first spell,  _farspeak_ , connected up with William like a static shock, and suddenly he heard her nearly shouting,  _Watch Amoretta. He's following Amoretta. Don't close on him. He'll down you if you give him the chance. He will win a quick draw._

William immediately backpedaled, keeping his eyes on Grabiner, and tried to set up for his first spell as he moved to regroup with Ellen.

Grabiner's first spell came off easily, and although William braced himself, it turned out to be a hermetic augmentation spell:  _punnulis incessa._ He didn't have long to wonder what the spell might have done, because its effect on Amoretta was immediately obvious. Instead of thumping along through the grass on her little rabbit feet, she seemed to float like thistledown, as if she had begun to skate about an inch above the ground on a cushion of air. Her spell finished a moment later, and this one William immediately recognized:  _alacrity_. As if Hieronymous Grabiner needed an edge against them in casting speed.

Behind him, Ellen was beginning her second spell, and he realized that she was going to try and shift the elemental affinity of the field. That was it, then. They were all out of the gate at a gallop. He needed to engage.

There was still time before Ellen successfully shifted the field to try and get in a fire spell at full power. If his intention was to aggravate and distract Grabiner, then he had a spell that would do the job, if he could land it.

 _Blistering Itch_ was only two verses to cast, which made it quick enough for the situation at hand, but he would have to close with Grabiner for a chance to use it, since he needed to touch him for the spell to work. It would not be easy to catch him, but William was tall and fast on his feet. If he could lay even a single finger on Grabiner's clothing, then the spell would connect. He had to at least try. Physically landing a spell on Grabiner might be his best chance.

A spell that had to be fired could be grounded, but a spell that was landed by touch could not be. Ellen had warned him not to close with Grabiner, but that had been a warning about not stumbling into the two of them unawares, with no plan of action. If he kept moving, he could stay out of Amoretta's crosshairs, hopefully, and do his job to distract Grabiner. He did have Ellen as his backup, after all. She was very competent, particularly for a first year student.

He closed with Grabiner.

The professor had not yet begun a second spell. His attention was focused on William, although William noted that he was careful to stay in range of Amoretta as he moved, keeping her safely behind him. Amoretta was in the midst of casting something, but if he intended to hit Grabiner he could not be distracted by it.

He danced forward on his toes, the spell built in his hands. He dodged around Grabiner's flank, hoping to catch his sleeve, or better yet, his unprotected back, but suddenly Grabiner wasn't in front of him at all. He had turned on his heel and come around behind William, guiding William's momentum with a hand on his shoulder. When Grabiner was fully behind him, William felt Grabiner plant his hand solidly on William's back. A well-placed shove sent William tumbling forward, and he very narrowly escaped landing the spell on his own skin. His spell collapsed in his hands instead, as he was unable to maintain his concentration as he stumbled forward. If he had kept the spell, he would have fallen, and then Grabiner would have definitely been upon him.

As he wheeled around to get Grabiner in his field of view again, he heard a grunt as Amoretta's spell connected with Ellen and his partner's field shift spell was broken. An interrupt. Amoretta had been focused on casting an interrupt to keep Ellen from shifting the field.

 _You were right,_  he thought back to Ellen.  _They don't want the field shifted._

Ellen was too occupied to reply, and William realized that without even a breath, she had begun casting the field shifting spell a second time. His eyes swept to Amoretta briefly, and he saw that she was already casting a second interrupt. But Grabiner would not allow him to shift his attention for long. Already the professor had started another spell, and William could not afford to take his eyes from this present danger, even as they circled one another.

Try as he might, William could not gain enough ground to drive Grabiner from Amoretta, even long enough to disrupt her spell. Her spell came off, and again Ellen's attempt to shift the field was shuttered. Grabiner had finished his verses and was nearly ready to call his spell. William readied himself to dodge it. He did not imagine there would be time to ground it.

But as the spell broke into the world, William realized his error. It was not a spell that could be dodged, and he was not the intended target.  _Sluggard_ had acquired Ellen as its target, and it hit her even as she attempted to recover from repeated interrupts.

Behind him, Ellen staggered in momentary confusion.

 _Are you all right?_  he called, not daring to turn his eyes from Grabiner.  _Do you need my help?_

 _I'm fine,_  came Ellen's slow answer.  _I can handle this. You. You be careful of Amoretta -_

But already, around his ankle like a band of steel, was a manacle of light. A bind. While he had been distracted, Amoretta had caught him in a bind. It was magic beyond the ken of a first year student, he thought, no matter the identity of her private tutor.

Grabiner was already advancing on him, although he had not yet begun to build a spell.

Desperation loosened his lips and a dispel poured out of him, freeing his ankle before Grabiner could fully close.

 _The momentum,_ he thought wildly,  _We're losing the momentum._

He didn't give himself time to think about it. Already he was moving through another fire spell of his own making. If he could not land a touch, then he would have to try and hit Grabiner from a distance. Somewhere behind him, he could hear Ellen slowly struggling through her disenchantment.

 _She should have let me help her,_  William thought, gritting his teeth.

A bare moment of distraction was apparently what Grabiner had been waiting for, and before Willian could finish his spell, Grabiner had begun a counterspell: systemic magic to wrest control of the spell that William had begun. William redoubled his efforts to control the spell, digging his feet into the ground as he attempted to hold it.

The pressure from Grabiner was immense, and it wasn't just the sheer weight. It was  _finesse_. This was the kind of on-the-fly spell manipulation that William had admired from afar for years. It was what he aspired toward: to master control to the degree that he could take an opponent's spell away from him entirely, and perhaps weave it into something new in the doing.

William felt the spell inexorably slipping away from him. It was like trying to hold onto a handful of dry sand.

And then he heard it: a light voice, higher pitched than Grabiner's, working through the same spell at his heel.  _Assistance_. Amoretta was providing  _spell assistance_.

William lost the spell. Grabiner won control of it and exhausted from the fight to retain it, William did not have the wherewithal to dodge.

The fire spell hurt as it broke over him, but the protection spell did its work, and although the heat on his skin smarted, William could still stand. If he allowed himself to be overpowered now, then the fight was over.

While William had been battling Grabiner and Amoretta over possession of his fire spell, Ellen had managed to recover from the sluggard and was nearing completion of a field shift. But Amoretta no longer needed to support Grabiner's bid for spell dominance, and William caught the interrupt as it rippled out of her as easy as breathing and broke the more complicated spell.

 _How does she do it every time?_ William wondered, his brows drawing together.  _Ellen ought to be able to resist at least some of her interrupts. That girl must have incredible accuracy._

Speed  _and_  accuracy, given how she had caught him in a bind during a half-second of distraction. Ellen had been correct: Amoretta had not once used attack magic, but she was far from helpless.

He had no time to spend marvelling on the small girl's versatility. Grabiner was already building another spell, and this one William could read as it formed:  _Arc Ribbon_. It was Pentachromatic magic this time, a fire spell that would hurt if it landed, regardless of the protection spell that still hung on his skin with a dull sheen. If he kept taking hits from Grabiner's spells, he wouldn't last long. He focused himself to spin up a shield.

At that moment, his head turned of its own accord to follow the sound of strange, lilting music. It was lively, and a little funny, that music. It was janty, full of pep, bound to inspire giggles in the unwary. The source of the music was the small brunette who still held the field behind Grabiner. She was holding a very silly looking wand over her head, one that glimmered green and was topped by a star like a christmas tree decorated by a five year old. Above the tip of her wand twinkled a mesmerizing light display that flashed in time along with the music, almost hypnotically -

 _Fascination_. It was  _fascination_. He slapped his own cheeks hard, bringing tears to his eyes and spat out a shield spell before jamming his fingers in his ears. Arc Ribbon's tendrils of fire licked around the hastily erected shield, but the shield held.

Underneath his feet he felt the field finally shift to water, as Ellen at last completed the spell she had been so desperately attempting.

She immediately followed it up with a  _push_ spell that Grabiner had to be quick on his feet to intercept, putting himself between Amoretta and the line of sight spell. He grounded it, but Amoretta was forced to give up her fascination spell, leaving William with the space and the opportunity to act.

 _Hushing Rain_  sprang into the air around them as he called the spell into being. The temperature dropped slightly and a breeze whispered through his hair as fat raindrops began to fall from the imaginary sky. Outside of the localized area of the dueling field, the day was still bright and blue, but inside the lines, stormy weather had come.

 _That ought to put at least a little damper on all those fire spells,_ William thought at Ellen. He had given up fighting Grabiner with fire. If it could be done, it was beyond his ken to do it.

As the storm broke over them, the water field at their feet disappeared. Amoretta had neutralized it, but even with the field gone, the rainstorm remained.

And Grabiner was casting again, a spell that William did not recognize, beyond the fact that he was meddling with the elements already in the field. As he finished his spell, the thunder rolled over them ominously, and the rain slackened off until it dissipated entirely. The air smelled a little like sulphur and a little like ozone.

Casting the spell had occupied all of Grabiner's attention, and so William had had time to fall back toward Ellen. Grabiner's distraction at handling such a large spell was the chance they needed. With the rain gone and the water field cancelled, there was no reason for him not to try fire again. Grabiner was clearly too occupied to wrest control of the spell. Behind him, he could hear Ellen building her own elemental attack spell.

This was the moment.

Although they hadn't coordinated their spells perfectly enough for a synchronization effect, William felt Ellen's elemental wind spell tear by him, blowing his ponytail up over his head as he released his fire spell:  _Vandal Brand._

Grabiner and Amoretta were slightly out of line with one another. There was a chance that both spells would connect with one target. If both hit him while he was unprotected, surely that would stagger even Grabiner, and if they hit Amoretta, it would be a total knockout. Even if only one of the spells connected with the girl acting as Grabiner's final position then she would go down.

The spells slipped by inexorably toward their targets, and time seemed to dilate strangely around them all. There was no stopping the magic now, no grounding the spells, no interrupting them. Their range was wide enough that Amoretta, who was square in the middle of their blast radius, could not hope to escape. If Grabiner threw himself out of the way, then Amoretta would take the brunt of both spells.

 _He won't leave her_ , Ellen said, answering William's unvoiced thought.

Just as she said it, Grabiner proved her prediction true, as he moved directly into the line of fire and lines of blue split the air in front of him as he put up his shield.

 _It'll break under two focused assault spells,_  William thought, the sweat slipping down his face as the blood hammered in his ears.  _That shield has to break._

His heart leapt into his throat as Grabiner's shield shattered under the strength of the two heavy attack spells, like glass flying back from an impact. But then, even as the plasma of magic surged forward, pale blue lines lit up the air in a spinning circle gleaming silver, and the two spells spent the last of their force against this second shield, which glowed subtle and beautiful, like the bell of a flower that only blooms under the moon.

William's eyes shifted incredulously to the small figure several paces behind Grabiner, whose arm was thrown out as she tried to regain her breath through panting.

 _She shielded him,_  William thought, the wheels in his mind spinning madly.  _Under the threat of two focused assault spells, she spent her one chance at protecting herself on shielding him instead._

He hadn't realized he'd thought it aloud until Ellen's reply brought him back to reality.

 _She believes that if she shields him, she shields herself,_  Ellen thought back.

 _That's incredibly reckless,_ William sputtered.

 _That's Amoretta,_  came Ellen's reply, _She's - oh, oh no, no no no -_

William turned back to look over his shoulder in alarm to find that Ellen was doubled over, retching. Grabiner had not been idle during their astonishment, and had caught Ellen in a nausea spell. Determined not to let that go unanswered, William tried to snipe a shot at Amoretta, but found his spell shocked out of his hands by her interrupt.

His hands were still numb and tingling as he tried to shake off the shock that left him feeling a little dizzy.

 _Ellen has taken how many of these and she keeps casting without breaks?_ he wondered. Even as he wondered, he realized that he had begun to sweat. His clothes felt sticky against his body from where the rain had wet him to the skin. It smelled hotter. Grabiner had gotten a spell off again while he was distracted. He was preparing the battlefield for something, although what, William could not tell.

While Ellen struggled to recover from her nausea, William understood that this was his last stand. If he was to remain on the field, he would have to gamble. He drew back toward Ellen and began a five verse count spell: _Draw Inferno._  He felt the manacle of light snap around his ankle as Amoretta successfully bound him, but he did not let this distract him. Grabiner was busy with a spell of his own, and as it finished William drew in a breath of pure oxygen and felt lightheaded.

But whether he was chained or not, he had them in the middle of his spell radius. Draw Inferno was a huge spell that caused a localized conflagration, so it could not be shielded, even by the both of them together. As the spell built to a crescendo in his hands, William was unsurprised that Grabiner made no attempt to leave the blast radius. Even if he could remove himself, Amoretta could not move quickly enough, and William had already seen that Grabiner would not leave his wife. In fact, he had counted on it.

There was a spell on Grabiner's lips that William could not read as he released his own spell, but surely it would come too late. In the space of half a second, Grabiner had taken a step backward and extended his hand behind him. It was perhaps a touching gesture as fire was ready to leap into being around them, and William watched as Amoretta threw herself forward toward his hand. Their fingertips just brushed as the spell exploded around them and William had to shield his eyes from the heat and the blinding haze.

He looked over his shoulder at Ellen to reassure himself that she was all right, and at that moment, all the color drained from his face. She was struggling to free herself from binds on her own ankles, and behind her, on the opposite side of the dueling field, was Grabiner, a slightly sooty Amoretta hanging off his arm.

 _Teleportation_. Grabiner had teleported them both out of the blast radius in the same second the spell had exploded.

As the white light of a sanctuary spell lit up the ground at Grabiner's feet and Ellen managed to extricate herself from her bind, she looked over her shoulder at Grabiner briefly, and then turned back to William with frantic eyes.

"We've got to get out of here!" she shouted out loud, forgetting that the sound also roared in his mind, heavy with her fear, "He's going to - "

But she cut herself off as she began her own teleportation spell even as she moved toward him, the words tumbling out one over another. The oppressive heat had already begun to make the hair dance around her face.

As his eyes shifted to Grabiner, who had put Amoretta behind himself again, he saw the heat shimmer, and he finally understood.

Ellen was running toward him, desperate to catch him in her own teleportation so they could get clear of the area, but he did not think there was any way that she could carry them both out of the danger radius on the mana she had left, not with his ankle bound to the ground. When she got close to him, he gave her the hardest shove he could in her direction of travel, and she blinked out of existence just as his fingertips left her back.

And then the world exploded in rolling, silent fire, and William knew no more.

* * *

Ellen emerged from her teleportation spell several yards away, sputtering as she fell. The blue lines of spell text marking the boundaries of the dueling field had already been dismissed, and Grabiner had extinguished the fire only a moment after it had begun.

"Stabilize him," came his command to Amoretta.

Ellen watched as Amoretta busily began laying green spells on William as Grabiner dispelled the magical effects that still lingered in the air around them. Soon William was coming around, rubbing at his head as Cord checked his vitals. William was a little singed, and his hair smelled slightly burnt, but he was otherwise fine, despite his brief loss of consciousness.

Ellen hurried to join them.

"You caused a flashover," Ellen said directly to Grabiner.

He glanced down at her from the midst of his disenchantment and nodded once, briefly.

"Yes," he said. "That is exactly what I did. Excellent reactions, by the way. You did very well."

"Don't you think causing a flashover was  _a little dangerous_?" she demanded, planting her hands on her hips.

Behind her, Amoretta was still seeing to William.

"With a proper understanding of the fire triangle, a flashover can be controlled by a wizard with the appropriate skills," Grabiner said, turning his attention back to disenchanting. "Naturally it was somewhat dangerous, Miss Middleton. We were engaged in a duel. I don't imagine you thought it would be altogether pleasant for Amoretta and I to be caught in Mr. Danson's Draw Inferno."

"You had no intention of being caught in that," huffed Ellen.

Grabiner turned back to her with a raised eyebrow, "And if Mr. Danson has any fondness for his life, he would have had no intention of being caught in my flashover," he pointed out. "Besides, Miss Middleton, he might have spared himself the unpleasant experience if he had just trusted to your teleport instead of sending you on your way. It was stupid of him to pass on the chance at evacuation."

"He was trying to make sure I got out of the danger zone," Ellen sputtered. "He was trying to be nice - "

"Whether or not he was trying to be nice is beside the point, Miss Middleton," Grabiner interjected. "It was stupid and patronizing for him to ignore your help. That is the reason he is on the ground at this moment. I admire your loyalty," Grabiner said as he rolled his eyes slightly, an indication that he found her loyalty misplaced, "But the boy made a poor partner for you. What you did today, you did despite the fact that he was uncooperative and condescending. Anyone who observed the duel might have seen that, as it was obvious."

"Hieronymous!" Amoretta cut in, the disapproval in her voice clear.

William rubbed his knuckles hard against his head as he sat up.

"No, no," he said. "Professor Grabiner is right. His form was really superb, and I made a lot of mistakes."

"Yes," Grabiner said critically. "You did. The most obvious one being that you attempted to act independently, rather than taking Miss Middleton's advice."

Ellen went pink. "Professor," she protested, "You can't - "

Grabiner rolled his eyes more obviously now. "He forced you into final position, instead of letting you engage as the vanguard, which you are perfectly capable of doing. You would have had more sense than to feed me a rainstorm that I would surely convert to dry thunder, and you probably would not have suggested that he charge right into me, first thing, unless I am very much mistaken," he said.

Ellen flushed and looked down at the ground.

"You're right," William admitted tiredly as he got to his feet. "I didn't listen to her, and I ought to have."

"You are arrogant, Mr. Danson," Grabiner said deliberately, his eyes heavy on the younger man, "And your world is narrow. If you seriously pursue dueling, then I can guarantee that you will end up in a coffin, and it will be no one's fault but your own. Beyond that, you are likely to endanger any partner you have, if you don't get her outright killed."

He glanced briefly at Amoretta, whose frown was most serious, and then at Ellen, who was still staring hard at the ground, her ears pink, and at last at William again. Grabiner shook his head once, briefly, and then turned his back on the four of them.

As he moved back toward the house, he raised one hand over his head to wave them off.

"Class is dismissed," he said.

* * *

After determining that William was not experiencing any lingering effects from the flashover, Amoretta excused herself from William, Cord, and Ellen with a hasty apology and stomped off after Grabiner.

This time he had pushed things too far. Now she regretted being lenient and not reproaching him earlier. He had been thoughtlessly mean and dismissive to William countless times over the past several days, but this time Grabiner had been brutally personal. It was not something she could simply ignore. She had to say something about it.

When he was like this -

She didn't like it.

Amoretta rightly guessed that he had retreated to his workshop. That was where he always fled when he wanted to shut everyone out. It was the only place in Revane where he could withdraw absolutely. As mistress of the house, she had unrestricted access to every other room.

As she approached the door, Kavus appeared before her with folded hands.

She had expected as much. When he wanted to be alone he always set the djinni to guard the door. Always before Amoretta had reluctantly respected his wishes when he had withdrawn, but this time -

"I am sorry, mistress," Kavus said apologetically, bowing his head slightly, "But the master has asked that he not be disturbed."

"That's unfortunate," Amoretta said without missing a beat, "Because he's going to be disturbed."

At the corner of the djinni's mouth appeared the barest curl of a smile. He was anticipating  _entertainment_.

"Mistress, I am sorry," he repeated himself, "But as I said, the master does not wish to see anyone. If you attempt to pass by me I will have to restrain you."

Amoretta stopped and considered. She could not force her way past the manus, but she was aware that he was generally friendly toward her and beyond that, he enjoyed seeing Grabiner's will subverted.

"Kavus," she said slowly, "What were the master's  _exact_ words?"

The djinni's smile curled up a little more as he recounted in a fair imitation of Grabiner, "Kavus, guard the door. I want none of my students coming to harangue me."

"Well, that's easy," Amoretta said with a shrug. "I'm not his student," she asserted. "I'm his wife, and the lady of this house. You can let me pass."

Kavus chuckled and raised a finger in protest. "I am sorry, mistress, but that I cannot allow," he said. "While you are the master's wife and my mistress, you are certainly also his student. You study under him in this very workshop four days a week. Ergo, I cannot permit you to pass."

Amoretta let out an exasperated sigh because, of course, he was correct. Even if she was Grabiner's wife, she could not escape also being his student.

Then she thought about it some more.

"He said that he did not  _want_ to be harangued, as in that is not what he desired, correct?" she asked.

"Correct," the djinni noted with a nod.

"I am sorry to say that we don't always get what we want," Amoretta pointed out. "I  _must_  see him. There, that's the moral imperative. The moral imperative is powerful stuff," she wheedled, attempting to persuade the djinni to let her have her way.

"That is so," agreed Kavus. "But as he has expressed his wishes, I must do my best to uphold them. As he bound me himself, his will still trumps your own, mistress. I cannot allow you to pass if your intention is to badger him."

Amoretta bit her lip, then she caught the djinni's meaning. "What if I had some other reason to visit him, I mean, other than to harangue him? What if I was acting as his fetch-and-carry? Would you let me pass then?"

The djinni's smile widened again, and he was catlike as he nodded.

"If I believed that you had the master's interests at heart, then I would be remiss in not granting you passage, mistress," he said. "I could never doubt your desire to serve the master as I do. You are devoted to his comfort."

That was all Amoretta needed to hear. She was down the hall to the kitchen in a moment, where she came upon the astonished Tansy in the middle of dinner preparations.

"I need a sandwich," she said with an authoritative snap of her heel. "Chicken and avocado. The way the master likes it. Now."

Although the kobold gave her a mutinous look, she did as she had been asked, and prepared a very artful tray, complete with a glass of milk, folded napkin, and a little rose in a budvase.

"That will ruin the master's appetite for dinner - " she warned as she gave over the tray.

"I'm sure it will," Amoretta agreed, and then she departed with the sandwich, calling, "Thank you, Tansy," over her shoulder.

When she approached the djinni with the laden tray she had a new question for him.

"Has he warded the room?" she wondered.

"He has not," Kavus answered. As mistress, Amoretta was perfectly within her rights to ask such questions and be answered, provided Grabiner had not specifically instructed against it.

"Just the door, then," Amoretta said to herself and then nodded once. "I'm sure he's locked it, but I don't care," she said with a shrug. "Kavus, teleport me inside the workshop. I've brought the master a sandwich. I have no idea what he's doing in there, but I'm sure he's hungry by now. He hasn't had anything since breakfast."

At this Kavus laughed and asked, "You do not wish to teleport yourself, mistress?"

Amoretta shook her head. "No, I'm not allowed to do that," she reminded him.

"What is one crime when you are ready to commit another?" he asked philosophically and Amoretta gave him a brief grin, her own spirits lifting a little at the prospect of breaking rules, particularly for a good cause.

"One crime is a misdemeanor," she said. "Two would be a felony and I'd probably get hard labor. I don't want to end up in Sing Sing. Send me in, big guy," she said, setting her jaw.

The djinni bowed once, and then sent her into the room where her husband brooded.

* * *

Grabiner was sitting at his desk with his back to the door, nursing two fingers of bourbon when he felt the telltale tingling of recently spun mana on the back of his neck and turned to see Amoretta standing in the middle of the workshop, a tray in her hands. She had a sandwich for him. She was practically the picture of domestic gratification. If only she had brought him another bottle of bourbon.

He frowned, then grunted, "So now I see just how carefully my wishes are considered in this house. I suppose you teleported yourself, you terrible little malcontent?"

"No," Amoretta answered evenly, minding her temper. "Kavus sent me in because I asked him to. I've brought you something to eat," she eyed the glass of bourbon. "I don't think a strictly corn mash diet is very good for you."

She sighed as she crossed the space to his desk to deliver the sandwich. Then she left the tray against the wall and leaned pensively against the cluttered desk. "Hieronymous, I've got to talk to you," she said, offering her open palms to him. "You were really unnecessarily cruel to William. You hurt his feelings badly."

"I meant to hurt them," Grabiner answered her curtly. "Sometimes hurting someone is the best way to teach them a valuable lesson."

Amoretta frowned and lost her hold on her temper. "I'm not sure what lesson you intended to teach him, other than that you can be an absolute jackass sometimes," she said. "And I'm sure he already knew that."

Grabiner turned in his chair to give her a narrow-eyed stare. "Thank you for that, darling," he said, sharp and acidic. "You always know just what to say to brighten my mood. What would I do without you?"

Talking to him when he was like this was like drinking gasoline: it was unquestionably dangerous and it made her feel very sick and uncertain. He sounded dark and poisonous and perhaps a little drunk. He hadn't had enough time to get drunk on anything but his own misery she thought, but given the unstoppered bottle of bourbon on the table it seemed as if that had been his intention before she had put herself right in the path of his self-torment.

As she looked at him, so full of anger and spite and pain, she regretted having childishly called him a name. His disinterest in the casual cruelty he had shown William had made her less than patient with him, but she had no excuse for having returned meanness with meanness. That she had said a needlessly rough and ugly thing to him made her feel very small, as if she had failed completely at what she meant to do. She had come before him in an attempt to understand why he was in such a knot of rage over William, and to turn him away from his anger toward a less toxic feeling. Calling him a jackass had done nothing positive nor useful. It had neither shocked him into humility nor shamed him into apologizing. It had not made him reconsider his actions. It had not even made her feel better, not even briefly.

She had hurt him needlessly, and she hated that. He hurt himself enough - he  _punished_ himself enough - without her help.

She tried her best to regain her composure as she reasoned with him.

"Hieronymous, of course William and Ellen lost," Amoretta said with exasperation. "You're an exceptional duelist and we've been working together for months. I trust you and I know how you think, and of course, you were absolutely marvellous out there," she finished, thinking that a little due praise might sweeten his temper at least marginally. It was true, his form had been beautiful, and they had read one another's intentions so well they had not needed to speak. It had been an exhilarating feeling, being at his back in the duel and anticipating what he would do based on small physical cues and her knowledge of his character, knowing that he was reading her every time he glanced over his shoulder. She was proud of how well they'd done together. Certainly it had been something that they had both worked hard toward. And yet, she frowned. "But think about it rationally," she said. "William had never partnered with Ellen before, and she's still nervous around him. You stacked the deck against them. I may not be an old hand at combat magic, but I'm  _used_  to you. You even told Ellen that you didn't expect the two of them to win. Of course you didn't," she said, shaking her head. "That would have been a ridiculous upset. I just don't understand why you were so hard on him at the end."

"I expected him to fail, that is true," Grabiner answered, his mouth turning into a bitter sneer, "I just didn't expect him to fail so catastrophically. Apparently I thought too well of him."

" _Hieronymous_ ," Amoretta said with strong disapproval, but Grabiner only tipped his glass in her direction before taking another sip.

"I am being perfectly frank," he said. "Today was a test for him as much as it was for you and Miss Middleton. It was a test to see how he performed when partnered with someone I am already certain is competent. He failed that test, Amoretta. He ran roughshod over her. He patronized her. She has a great deal of skill and expertise, but he is arrogant and domineering and was clearly uninterested in taking her advice. I thought little enough of him before this afternoon, but now that is even less because of how he treated her."

Amoretta's brows drew together, "Hieronymous, what do you mean?" she asked. "I didn't see anything that made me feel that he was rude or unkind to her at any point. Sure, maybe he didn't listen to her as much as he ought to have, but he's older than she is, and has already graduated. Of course he's going to assume he's more advanced. And we all know he specialized with red and control at school, so of course he'd naturally assume he'd be the vanguard."

"It is exactly because Miss Middleton is less experienced that he should have put her in the role of vanguard and let himself handle final position," Grabiner cut in mercilessly. "Final position is a much more complex role, and suited to the more experienced spell caster. The only reason I put you in final position from the very beginning is because your weird catalogue of spells leaves you absolutely incapable of acting as vanguard."

Amoretta frowned. "All right," she said. "You're the instructor, so you know best. Even with all that, I doubt he was dismissive, because he just isn't like that. Ellen was probably hesitant to disagree with him because she sometimes has trouble with authority figures, and in that match he was basically an authority figure." Amoretta threw her hands up. "I don't know what you expect from him. It's like he can't do anything to please you. Even pushing Ellen out of the way at the end - " She sighed. "It meant definitely taking your flashover  _himself_ \- I had bound him to the ground and you know that," she pointed out. "Without first breaking that bind, Ellen's teleport would have had to move her, him, the length of the bind, and a hunk of the solid ground. I'm not saying she might not have done it, because I know how good she is, but that was a big 'if,' and I understand why he wasn't willing to chance it. He might have been willing to gamble with himself, but he didn't want to risk her. Even if it meant losing the match and going down himself, William wanted to be sure that Ellen wouldn't be hurt." She frowned. "It seems to me that that's exactly the sort of behavior you'd approve of. It was a thoughtful, responsible decision, even if you don't think it was the right one."

"If a vanguard falls, then final position will be overwhelmed," he said darkly, and seemed very distant. "It was a meaningless gesture."

"If we were fighting to the death, maybe," Amoretta pointed out in exasperation. "But we weren't. Nothing awful was going to happen to Ellen as a result of William falling. They had already lost the match. He just wanted to make sure that she wasn't hurt. It was all he could do. In that sort of situation," she said, shaking her head, "I'm sure you would have done the same thing."

All at once Amoretta jumped out of her skin as she heard the unexpected sound of Grabiner's glass shattering against the floor at his feet.

"I'm very sorry," he said and he sounded as bitter as strychnine in clear water, "But I have no interest in discussing this with you further."

* * *

And then before she could protest she found herself swept up in Grabiner's teleport for a second time that evening.

He left her in the upstairs bathroom.

Perhaps even in his foul temper he found it grimly amusing.

Amoretta did not and she stamped her foot when she realized where she was, yelling all her anger and frustration out at the wall until she was left panting.

Then she took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down.

Grabiner could be absolutely infuriating, but she didn't like fighting with him. She didn't really like fighting with anyone, but to fight with him was worst of all. It had made her feel sick and worried to see him so dark and withdrawn, and now he would surely not come to her for comfort because she had had the audacity to call him out for his belligerence.

It had been the right thing to do, but she did not think she had done it well enough. She had probably done more harm than good. She felt very confused and tired.

At the door, there was a polite knock.

"Yes?" she answered listlessly, as if it took all her strength.

"It's Cord, madam," came the butler's quiet voice. "I was wondering if you needed anything."

 _Oh,_ she thought.  _I'm sure he heard me swearing at the wall. Yet another way that I am not a very impressive Lady Halifax._

"Madam?" he asked again. "Do you need anything?"

She was startled out of her pensive thoughts.

"No," she said immediately, out of habit more than anything. But then she second guessed herself, shaking her head. "Yes, probably," she said. "Come in and talk to me."

After a moment, Cord had opened the door and entered the small room with her. She sat down on the lid of the closed toilet and let out a sigh.

"I've had sort of a rough day," she admitted.

"I gathered that," he said sympathetically.

She looked up at the ceiling absently and asked, "What is it that makes you like Hieronymous Grabiner anyway?"

Cord thought about for a moment, then said, "Well, I think the biggest reason is because he doesn't give up on the things that are important to him, regardless of what it makes other people think. I guess you could say that's sort of his defining characteristic for me. He can stand being hated, but he can't stand giving up."

Amoretta rubbed at her temples in confusion. "You're the second person who's said something like that to me recently, and I don't understand it. I mean, I guess I do understand it in a way. I understand that it's true because I know him, but what is it that makes you so certain - "

"The trial," Cord answered, slightly bewildered at her question. "The trial concerning the death of Violet Lore. That's when he earned his appellation, you know, 'the Blind Icarus.'"

"Oh," Amoretta said, shifting uncomfortably, "I see." She bit her lip, because she still didn't understand things, and was worried that she had blundered awfully because of that, hurting Grabiner even more than she had previously imagined. "But why?" she asked hesitantly. "I don't," she admitted with great difficulty, "I don't understand."

" _You don't know,_ " Cord said slowly, looking at her with a new understanding. "You really honestly don't know about Violet Lore and the Blind Icarus, even though you're married to the master. You don't know about the star that fell to earth, and the man who tried to catch it."

Amoretta looked hard at the floor and blinked back the beginning of tears, her face flushed. "No," she said. "I don't."

"I'm sorry," Cord apologized, with a deep bow. "I'm not trying to be insensitive to your feelings. It's just, this is really  _astonishing_. You married him without knowing," he said, shaking his head briefly. "You really are Bluebeard's wife, ma'am," he said.

"Cord," Amoretta asked anxiously, leaning forward and wringing her hands in her lap. "What is it that I don't know? You're frightening me."

Cord immediately dropped to one knee and bowed his head. "I'm sorry, madam," he said. "I meant no disrespect to either you or the master, and I'm sorry for frightening you, but I'm not certain it's my place - "

"Cord,  _please_ ," she begged, balling her hands into fists. "People have tried to tell me before. I never listened because I thought it would be better if he told me himself, but now I'm so worried that I've made a mess of things by not knowing. I'm worried that I've said things and done things that have made him feel awful, that I'm the reason that he feels the way he does right now. Please tell me," she pleaded, tugging gently on his sleeve. " _I need to know._ "

"They say he killed his first wife. The people believe that he killed Violet Lore," Cord said slowly, keeping his eyes on the floor. "The official verdict was negligence, but many people believe that he took her there for that express purpose, that he had her killed, or maybe even killed her himself, and then managed to escape justice because of how old and powerful his family is. Violet Lore, the Peerless, she was well-known and well-loved, and everyone was outraged by her death. Even as a young man, the master was a well-known duelist, and the Peerless - well, that name wasn't idle praise. She was killed by goblins, you know, in the Otherworld, and he was present at the scene, acting as her vanguard. The public couldn't believe that a party of goblins could have overwhelmed the two of them when they were together. They had a reputation, at that point, for being a very formidable pair, a witch and a wizard who could not be overcome when they were together."

"People," he paused briefly, then shrugged, "Well, they were sort of in love with the  _idea_ of Violet Lore, I think. She was like a modern myth, a goddess come to walk among mortals. She and the master had a story that was like a fairy tale, and she was their back alley princess. She was a poor girl who had nothing but beauty and genius, and he was from a family that had served on the Rex Curia from the time of its inception. It was romantic, I guess, because they were star-crossed, and very passionate about one another. They left school early and married without his father's consent. I think Lord Montague even cut him off for a while, until, well," he averted his eyes, "Until what happened happened. Violet Lore was already considered one of the greatest witches in Europe at seventeen, and the master was from an ancient lineage, the son of one of the Ten, and absolutely deadly in a duel. They were both brilliant, although the Peerless shone so brightly that it made him seem almost ordinary by comparison. She was beautiful and funny and charismatic and he was handsome and arrogant and brutal. They were quite a pair, like perfectly matched pieces that fit together only because they were both so radically different from one another. Everyone knew them. They were iconoclasts, always flouting tradition. They had style and grace and presence. They were, I don't know, like witch world royalty," he struggled to explain it, "They had genuine celebrity: they were the sort of people who command respect and draw attention wherever they go."

"But then it happened," Cord said, swallowing slowly. "They were traveling together in the Otherworld, just the two of them - as they often traveled - and they were ambushed and overrun. When the scene was examined after the fact, it was a massacre. There were corpses everywhere. Violet Lore didn't go down without a fight."

Amoretta's forehead scrunched up in distress and confusion, "Then why blame Hieronymous for what happened? Why accuse him of her murder?"

"Because he survived." Cord said helplessly. "Although they beat him bloody and senseless, they took him alive and kept him as a prisoner in one of the goblin cities until he could be ransomed. There was barely enough of Violet Lore left to bury." Cord paused thoughtfully before adding, "And it's not just that he survived. It's because of what he said at the trail, and what he's maintained since: that when he and Violet Lore were beset, they found themselves inside an immense, powerful anti-magic field."

Amoretta thought back to when Donald had been imprisoned in a small field in one of the classrooms, and the memory of the feeling made her skin crawl and she shivered. She felt cold.

Cord patted her shoulder sympathetically and Amoretta ran a hand through her hair. "They don't think he's telling the truth?"

"An anti-magic field of reasonable size and strength is difficult even for an accomplished witch to produce, and one big enough for a witch and a wizard to fight a battalion of goblins inside?" Cord asked, wincing on Grabiner's behalf, "It's far-fetched."

"So it's like the shooter on the grassy knoll," Amoretta interjected, and Cord nodded.

"Something like that," he said, "Although that's a conspiracy theory people are eager to believe. In this case, the fact that he has always denied the court's findings has made people suspicious of  _him_ , rather than of the court. The inquisitors who investigated the scene of the battle never found any evidence that a field of any size had been deployed at the site. No traces to support the master's testimony were ever recovered." Cord closed his eyes briefly before continuing. "People believe that the master was involved with Violet Lore's death, either directly or indirectly, and that he constructed the ruse of the anti-magic field as a way to absolve himself of guilt."

"But nobody believes that the field really existed," Amoretta pointed out. "How does that provide any kind of absolution, particularly if that's the thing that makes people hate him?" She demanded.

"People are very good at believing contradictory things," Cord says with a weak smile. "Particularly when they want to punish someone. Particularly when they believe that someone  _ought_ to be punished. It's the same way they can believe he murdered his wife and that she died because of his incompetence at the same time. It doesn't have to make sense. It just has to satisfy them."

"But the court found him not guilty, didn't they?" Amoretta asked in confusion.

"The court ruled that Violet Lore's death was accidental," Cord said, spreading his hands in front of him. "Oh, she was clearly murdered by goblins, there was no doubt of that, but the court ruled that the incident was the result of poor fortune rather than design. The official word was that the master and the Peerless were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time when they were attacked and overwhelmed." Here Cord bowed his head, "But I'm afraid it's not as simple as 'not guilty.' The master was charged with and found guilty of negligence and dereliction."

"Dereliction?" Amoretta asked, "Dereliction of what?"

"Dereliction of his duties as Violet Lore's husband," Cord said, shaking his head gravely. "They decided that the evidence indicated that he had not offered her his protection, as he had vowed when he married her, so their punishment was to strip him of her name."

"Her name?" Amoretta asked blankly.

"At the time he was tried, the master's name was Hieronymous Lore. He married Violet Lore  _cum manu_  and joined her family," Cord explained. "When they found him guilty of negligence, they stripped her name from him because they said he did not deserve to bear it. He became Hieronymous Grabiner again, as he had been born."

Amoretta did not know what to say to that. She felt dizzy, out of breath, as if she had been hit hard in the stomach. This was what he had been carrying alone for so long. This was the terrible weight on his back that he would not share with her. She felt as if she had loved him without understanding anything, her feelings as shallow as the water in the little cove at the foot of the cliffs. She loved him desperately then, painfully and passionately, with all the meager shreds of her being, but she felt very pathetic and small.

She had known  _nothing_.

At this point Cord again became very thoughtful. "Despite the court's findings, the master does not accept that Violet Lore's death was an accident," he said. "He has never accepted it. He does not believe that they met a war party accidentally. He believes that they fell into a trap that someone had set to catch and kill the Peerless. He believes she was murdered, likely by whoever was responsible for the phantom anti-magic field. He has no proof of this, other than his own memories but he has never been silent about what he believes. People think a lot of things about the master: that he's a coward and a crackpot, a drunk, delusional, that he's trapped in the past in a cage of his own making. They still think he's arrogant, privileged, and surly, but some people believe that he got away with murder, that he murdered the one person he had sworn to protect."

Cord lifted one hand over his head and made a sweeping motion with it, as if it were a bird.

"They call him 'Icarus' because he was a young marvel before his fall, and as far as most people are concerned, that fall killed Hieronymous Lore. The man who remains is considered a pale shadow of the man who once was. They call him 'blind' because he refuses to accept the truth, that Violet Lore is dead because of his own negligence. They say that he is blind because he still seeks to invent excuses instead of taking responsibility for his actions. That is why they call him 'the Blind Icarus.'"

"That's a terrible name," Amoretta said, wrapping her arms around herself.

"It was not meant with kindness," Cord agreed. "People who are more sympathetic towards him call him 'Icarus' because they believe Violet Lore was like a star: too hot and brilliant to be held by anyone for long. She was as hot as sunlight and she melted his wings, and he is blind because he loved her despite this terrible danger. They call her the star that fell to earth, and they call him the man who tried to catch her in his bare hands. It's the kind of love they call 'limerence': the crippling love. It burns brightly and consumes everything."

Amoretta was trembling. Cord recognized her extreme distress even if she had not verbalized it and read it in his own way, placing a hand on her shoulder again.

"But you've got to understand that none of what I've told you is what  _I_ think about the master," He hastened to explain. "Before I came here I didn't know anything beyond what I had read of the trial at the time. I didn't really think I would like Hieronymous Grabiner, even though I didn't believe all that I had read. But then I met him and I understood. Although he doesn't have any proof, I believe that what he says about Violet Lore's death is true. It's just something I've gotten the feeling for, talking to him. I think once you really know him, it becomes impossible to imagine that he has done anything but tell the truth these long years. He wants justice for her, and if he can't have that, then he wants to punish the person responsible for her death. I don't think he'll ever let it go, not until the day that he dies." Cord gave Amoretta a sad smile. "The people might have forgiven him if he had confessed to some lesser crime, if he had admitted negligence or dereliction, if he had accepted the blame for her death, but he has never done that. I believe that he's chosen to be hated rather than dishonor her by becoming a liar."

"But he blames himself for her death," Amoretta said in a small voice. "I know that he does. I'm not saying that he ought to. I don't want him to, but I  _know_  he does. He  _wallows_  in it sometimes."

Cord shook his head and said, "That's what they call 'survivor's guilt.' He blames himself because he couldn't protect her even when he gave all of himself. He blames himself because he still lives even though she's dead. Even I can see that. That's why I admire Hieronymous Grabiner," he said. "That's why I agreed to work here: because he chooses to be hated rather than loved. It's not good," he said, shaking his head again. "It's not easy, but it is strong and it is beautiful."

Amoretta closed her eyes and was silent for some time.

At last she managed, "Thank you, Cord. That's all I wanted to know."

* * *

With some difficulty, Amoretta managed to convince Cord that she was all right, and although reluctant, the butler at last left her at her bedroom door. He had noticed that she seemed strangely chilly, and she admitted that she felt cold and tired and promised him that she would bundle up.

No, she didn't want tea. Yes, she was honestly all right. Yes, she was glad he had told her all that he had told her. Yes, thank you, she appreciated his kind thoughts.

Amoretta was feeling very low, and wanted to be alone with her thoughts, but she understood why he did not want to leave her and so she put on a brave, cheerful face. This face was not altogether convincing and Cord withdrew only when she insisted on wanting privacy, and only then after touching the stud in his ear briefly. He was clearly torn between his duties to her and his household responsibilities, but the dinner hour was nearly upon them and there were guests in the house. She promised she would come down for dinner after she had a little rest. At last he left her, after making her swear that she would call for him if she had need of anything.

Amoretta promised with a friendly nod and then let herself into her bedroom.

The room was dim and silent in the shadow of early evening. Grabiner was still in his workshop downstairs, and he clearly had no interest in her company. He was nursing his hurt alone, as he always did. She slumped against the bedroom door and absently put her hand over her shoulder. It had begun to ache some time ago. Alone in the privacy of the room, Amoretta pulled her t-shirt over her head and then began a soothing spell. Even when the spell's healing light disappeared into her flesh the wound still ached.

Her heart ached, and she felt slightly ill. What she had learned about Grabiner's past had been unexpected and painful, the wound much more terrible and raw than she had ever imagined. He had not only seen the woman that he loved die in a brutal, gruesome,  _horrifying_ way, but he had been accused of her murder. The weight of her death had been loaded onto his shoulders, and he had not even been allowed to mourn in peace. He had blamed himself from the beginning, Amoretta knew that even without being told, but then they had taken what was left of her from him, stripping her name from his skin as punishment for his imagined sins. In the time of his great loss and despair, when he had needed comforting the most, he had been shamed and disgraced and cursed. Even now he still wore a heavy mantle of suspicions and rumours, years after Violet's death. In all that time, he had shared his pain with no one, sometimes staggering under the weight of his incredible self-loathing. He had built himself a small, dull life at Iris Academy, one devoid of sorrows and of joys, because his great sorrow, his great pain, his great misery was ever-present, always bearing down on him with the weight of a thousand curses.

Now she at last understood the words of Marguerite Belle.

_Everyone knows the Blind Icarus. That is the power of infamy. People are surprised, my dear. No one ever expected your husband to take another wife._

And perhaps that was the reason people were always expecting him to throw her down a well: it was what he had a reputation for.

_Silly, stupid, innocent little wildseed girl, the childish, friendly, naive Pollyanna, a girl who doesn't ask too many questions, a girl who accepts and trusts without thinking about it and who is hurt badly because of it, the new Baroness Halifax, an awkward schoolgirl plucked from a New Hampshire farmyard, a poor fit certainly, but what else could be expected, considering. She was a gullible little beauty married off to a homicidal beast with no knowledge of who he was or what he had done to the girl who had come before her. It had been easy to sweep a child off her feet, certainly. Poor girl. Nothing good would come of it, but what could one do?_

Amoretta realized at last that this was her part in the drama, that this was her role to everyone who watched with bated breath, to the people who read the society page, to the people who had sent the dozens and dozens of weddings gifts, perhaps even to the people she went to school with. She was a sweet, amiable sacrificial lamb who pranced and played about on green grass and then cheerfully suggested mutton for dinner, with no knowledge that she would be served up as first course.

She felt like a fool.

And he had tried to warn her. He had tried to warn her so many times that he was not something that she ought to want, that he was vile and poisonous, that he could never give her what she needed, what she wanted. He had tried to show her his scars and his ugliness, had tried time and time again to cleave through her fancies with the reality of his circumstances. He was tired and bitter and hard and unloveable.

He had told her from the beginning,  _you deserve better than me._

But she had known better than him and had loved heedlessly and without regret. She had given him her hands and her heart, even before he had been willing to take them, left them in his chair like unwanted Christmas gifts.

Even now, standing alone in their bedroom and shivering, her arms wrapped around herself, she still loved him without regret. What she had learned from Cord had made the bottom drop out of her very self, her confidence destroyed so totally that it might as well have never existed. She had felt her strength draining away to nothing because she had at last understood her vast, incalculable ignorance. She had loved him weakly, without understanding. He had been so hurt. He had been  _so hurt_. What he needed was much greater than what she given him up until now. This knowledge left her trembling and terrified. What if she could not do it? What if she could not love him the way he needed to be loved, the way he  _deserved_ to be loved?

Even with all these doubts, now, more than ever, what she wanted to fill herself with was  _him_ : the way he turned his back on her when he was embarrassed about something, the way he held her when she was afraid, how he relaxed under her hands when she stroked his hair, the way he always came running whenever she was in trouble, how he snorted when wanted to laugh at one of her jokes but was unwilling to let her know that he thought she was clever, the sound of his honest laughter when he was caught off guard, how stubborn he could be when he refused to admit that he was wrong, his polished manners (when he remembered them) and his disdainful rudeness when he purposefully forgot them, his dismissive, offhand snobbery, how terrified and uncertain he was whenever he showed his heart to her, his awful temper, his intense sincerity, his casual arrogance, all the bitter, terrible parts of him that often hurt her when she tried to hold onto him, and his quiet strength when he held her in his arms.

He had told her,  _If the world stands against you, then I've got no other choice but to stand against the world._

If other people thought she was a fool, even if they thought she was a silly, ignorant child who didn't know any better than to develop a taste for poison, she didn't care. She had absolutely had no interest in their opinions.

She loved him. She loved him impossibly and desperately and with every shred of herself, with every iota, with every dalton. He had seen what she was, had accepted all that she was, and still asked for her to stand beside him, despite everything. He had let her into his sanctuary when she was terrified and alone, and had comforted her, holding her every night as she slept, so that she would not be tormented by things unseen. He had opened up his house and had built her a little garden filled with the music of the birds she loved. He had very reluctantly given his maimed and bloodied heart into her care, and more than she ever had before she understood how painful and difficult it had been for him to realize that he loved her, to accept that he loved her, to  _tell her_ that he loved her.

His everyday cloak was hanging in the wardrobe, largely forgotten now that warmer weather had come, and she pulled the familiar garment down tentatively, bundling it against her chest, trying to remember the first time she had felt it sweep around her. That had been in October, she thought, the evening she had fainted in the shopping mall. He had dropped his book to catch her, upsetting his chair and nearly knocking over the candle display in front of her. Or in September, during the first exam, when she had unexpectedly teleported herself out of the dungeon and into a tree and then landed on him while he tried to help her down. That had been a flurry of confusion and contusions and warmth. He had ended up bruised, but she had been perfectly fine, because even then he had been careful to cradle her when they fell. Or perhaps it had been even before that, the very first day, when she had run straight into him, knocking them both to the ground. His arms and his cloak had been around her then too, and she had heard him swear as he tried to find the hat that she had knocked clean off his head.

Ten demerits to begin with, and a thousand more afterwards. She was always in trouble. She had been in trouble since the very beginning, since the first moment she had barrelled straight into him. Perhaps he was terrible. Perhaps he was awful and difficult and ugly and cruel. Perhaps he was poison, but she didn't care. He was what she wanted. He was what she had always wanted. She loved him so hard that she felt that she might tear herself into pieces, as if by ripping herself into strange, glinting fragments she might rearrange herself so that she loved him better, or worse, more painfully, more beautifully.

She felt dizzy and staggered a little. She needed to sit down.

She moved to the edge of the bed and sat, pulling his cloak around her like a blanket.

It did not matter what anyone else thought of her, if they imagined she was Little Red Riding Hood wed to the Big Bad Wolf, if they covered their mouths and clucked their tongues, even if they planned out her obituary, writing flowery verses about her early death. Those people would always be on the outside: outside of her home, outside of her heart, outside of her life. She did not know if she had the strength within her to show the world how wrong they had been about him. He was not always easy to love, although she loved him easily, as easily as drowning. It was an immense and terrifying responsibility, to somehow change what the whole world thought of him, and she doubted she was clever enough or grand enough to do such a thing.

But she thought, perhaps, that  _this_ might be what Lady Halifax did.

And if the world could not love him, then she would shift it until it did.

She understood Violet Lore very intimately in that moment, in the dark bedroom. Dead and buried, the Peerless could not do what remained to be done. She had dumped the impossibly heavy load of her life at Amoretta's feet, like a pile of weird treasures. Looking at it, the strange hopeless confusion of all that she had been and done, Amoretta was not certain that she could bear the weight of the girl who had called herself the Peerless, the genius, the indigo witch, the brilliant star that had fallen to earth.

"How did you do it all?" Amoretta wondered aloud, feeling very faint and cold.

But then the answer seemed so obvious that Amoretta was not sure whether she ought to laugh or cry.

"Of course," she said quietly to the empty room. "You did it because it never occurred to you that you might not be able to."

As she fell sideways onto the bed, she hazily reflected that flying was only falling and missing the ground.

* * *

Alone in his workshop, Grabiner eyed the sandwich that sat untouched on the corner of his desk. After he had ejected Amoretta from the premises, he had lost interest in drinking, even had his glass not lain shattered against the stone floor. He still very much wanted to be drunk, to drown out the events of the day which still burned against his skin like shallow scratches, but she had soured the whiskey on his tongue.

He did not feel like doing much of anything.

He massaged his temples slowly, then stood to retrieve the broom from the corner of the workshop and got to work sweeping up the shattered glass. He might have called the butler or the manus, or even swept the shards away with a spell, but the manual labor of the task steadied him.

It was getting on in the evening. Cord would be readying the table for dinner. Grabiner was not certain he wished to attend this evening's dinner, which was sure to be strained and uncomfortable.

He was certain that Amoretta would not yet have forgiven him. It had been childish and petulant of him to send her away as he had, particularly to the upstairs bathroom. He had been asserting his authority to absolutely no purpose other than to strong arm her. He had been acting like a tyrant, like a boy-king determined to have his way, but he never knew what to do with her when her temper got white and hot. It was so uncommon for her to be anything but kind and understanding, patient and agreeable. Even when she disagreed with him she was generally very amiable. She had a way of gently turning him around until he came to her way of thinking or she accepted that he would not. But her anger was always terrible and brittle, with the sudden heat of a flash fire. Her fury set him on edge.

He had wanted to brood and sulk in misery, and of course she hadn't been willing to allow him the privilege of his private despair. He knew that he'd been ugly to the boy. He knew that he'd been repellent to her. He did not need to be reminded what an awful human being he was, but she had come despite his half-hearted efforts to keep her out, and she had told him what she thought of him.

But that wasn't really true and he knew it.

She had not come into the workshop to fight him. Amoretta never went anywhere looking to fight. She was gentle and thoughtful and curious and sweet. She built bridges. She didn't burn them.

She would fight like a cat when she felt she had no recourse, but she had not been trying to fight with him. She had been trying to talk to him, to reason with him, to make him see sense, and he had been rude and dismissive to her, had implied that she did not have the right to disturb him.

If anyone had that right, then that right had long been hers.

He sighed and sat back in his desk chair, feeling very tired.

"Kavus," he called. "Would you please locate my wife? I owe her an apology."

There was a moment of silence and then the djinni appeared, looking very serious.

"She is upstairs in your bedroom," he said. "She did not respond when I spoke to her. I believe she may be asleep."

The word was barely out of Kavus's mouth before Grabiner was out his chair, his hands fumbling at the lock on the door until he finally spat out a spell and threw it open so that it slammed against the wall behind, going up the old wooden stairs to the upper floor three at a time -

It was very quiet and dark in the bedroom, and Grabiner did not have the patience or presence of mind to stumble around looking for the lamp and so he lit up the room with a witchlight and found her on the bed, wrapped in his cloak. Her shirt was crumpled on the floor near the door, and one look at the bandage on her shoulder told him that the wound had been bleeding again. It seemed to have spread, not much, but noticeably, and he could see slender lines of ink radiating from the curse burn and disappearing under her camisole, marking the path that the witch mark was taking toward her heart.

He called out her name, but she did not respond, and so he put his hands on her for the first time and realized that she was cold to the touch.

His heart stopped.

For a moment it was as if the universe had reached absolute zero. All movement had stopped: her heart, his heart, the rotation of the earth, the orbit of the sun around the center of the galaxy, the movement of electrons, the spin of quarks. It had all ceased. There was nothing. Time had ended.

But then he was swearing loudly, pulling her into his arms and carrying her back toward the stairs, back to his workshop where he could think. She was cold, but his fingers on her wrist had found her pulse. She was not dead.

She was not dead.

As he carried her through the door to his workshop, Ellen Middleton's head came shyly around the corner from the great room, drawn by the noise and confusion. When he saw her, he called her after him.

"I may need you," he said.

Although uninvited, William Danson came behind her, but Grabiner had no time to consider him. He had to determine what had happened to his wife. He laid her down on the sofa.

The curse burn had obviously spread, which meant it had at last burnt through the seal that Grabiner had laid on it in March. The inky lines in the capillaries under her skin had begun to come together in arabesques, forming an elaborate design around the bloody handprint on her shoulder. The skin around the wound had taken a blue cast. It was almost luminously blue-white, otherworldly, strange and fey. But that by itself did not explain why Amoretta was so cold.

It took a diagnostic to reveal what was wrong with her.

"Her mana pool is nearly empty," he said tensely to the girl behind him, whose fists were clenched tightly. "She isn't osmosing mana. Her magic isn't breathing." His eyes flicked sideways to Ellen. "I need you to bring the three bottles you find on the third shelf over there." He did not turn to look at William. "You qualified in senior black, didn't you?"

"I did," William answered steadily.

"Have you ever brewed Unlit Vital Essence?" Grabiner asked, his eyes not leaving Amoretta as he began to shrug out of his robe.

"I have," William said. "But only twice. The ingredients are expensive."

"It doesn't matter," Grabiner said shortly. "Do it. Ellen will show you where the equipment is." He shifted his attention to her again, because she had brought the bottles he had asked for. He was already pushing off his suspenders and beginning to unbutton his shirt. "There's a recipe in the big brown book we use for alchemy lessons. Get him what he needs."

Ellen flushed and looked away, but nodded, saying, "Yes, sir."

Cord had appeared at the doorway to the workshop, looking ashen.

"Sir, it's all my fault - " he began, his voice rising in unfamiliar tones of panic.

"It is not," Grabiner cut him off sharply. "If anyone is at fault then it is me because I did not recognize that this was happening to her. Keep calm, boy.  _You must keep calm_." They were hard, deliberate words for himself as much as a command to the butler. "Go to the school and fetch the headmistress. I may need her if I cannot start Amoretta's breathing on my own. Take the car - " he stopped dead. "You can drive?"

Cord shook his head. He was not tall enough to see over the steering wheel.

Ellen interjected, "Take my bicycle. You can cut through the woods on the path. It's much shorter than going by road."

Grabiner nodded. "Yes," he said. "That will do. Now be off."

The butler went without another word.

By this point Grabiner had shed his shirt and sat down on the sofa next to Amoretta, pulling her into his lap. She was still very cold. He wrapped the cloak around them both and then began a spell, closing his eyes in concentration.

Across the workshop, Ellen acted as William's assistant as he carefully measured ingredients into one of the small cauldrons.

"He must get her magic breathing again," William told her quietly. "She will die if he can't. If her mana pool is emptied, then she will die just the same as if she were drained of blood. It's incredibly abnormal for it to be as low as it is. Usually a witch can't drain it down past half way unless they're very disciplined and have had special training. I don't know how it could have gotten so low, unless the mark had something to do with it."

"Unlit Vital Essence is a liquid mana elixir, isn't it?" Ellen asked, her eyes still on Grabiner, who was focused on casting his spell, which seemed very complicated and had a long verse count. He was holding Amoretta very tenderly despite his intense concentration, her head tucked under his chin, but Ellen could read the strain in his face.

"That's exactly it," William said, focusing on the potion he was mixing. "It's one of the most potent mana elixirs that humans can stand to drink, although it tastes so awful that most people avoid it if they can, that and it's very expensive to produce. What he's trying right now is something like CPR. He's trying to get her magic breathing manually, with the rhythm of his own body, through his skin, but if she does begin to breathe, she'll begin consuming his mana pool directly."

"Like two scuba divers breathing from one oxygen tank," Ellen said slowly and William nodded.

"It's an emergency measure," William said. "He's got to keep replenishing his mana pool while she drains it, otherwise feeding her mana may well kill him, or at least knock him completely unconscious."

"Which is why he asked you to brew this potion," she said, looking down into the cauldron, where the liquid was beginning to glow, as viscous as mercury.

William nodded again. "He had you bring him his local supply, but he can't be sure how long he'll have to feed her his mana until he gets her breathing on her own again. And he must keep feeding her until she begins to breathe on her own. If he doesn't, then her body may simply shut down. Nobody here knows powerful enough healing magic to stabilize her with her mana pool so low. It'd probably take a White Cap to do something like that, or maybe the headmistress."

All at once Ellen's eyes widened and she covered her mouth with her hands.

"The headmistress isn't at the school," she whispered to William. "She left yesterday. Professor Finch is minding things right now. I - I - I can't tell him that."

"He'll find out soon enough anyway," William said soothingly. "It's not your fault."

"But Cord might have gone for somebody else - " Ellen stammered.

"There is nobody else," William said quietly. "All we can do is hope that he can get her breathing on his own." He saw her shoulders tense up and he said, "It's all right. Just focus on what I'm doing. That's all we can do right now."

Ellen bit her lip and then nodded, bowing her head. He could see the tears that were standing at the corners of her eyes.

William glanced over at Grabiner, who held the ghostly pale girl so close and careful, and then bowed his own head to his work.

* * *

_Let my breath be as your breath. Let my blood beat as your blood. You are blind, but I will lead you. Let my flesh be your guide and your bower. You who wander alone in the wild darkness, I am the beacon, the path, and the gate. Drink of my blooming heart and be glad. This is the forgiving hour, but you will not pass away. Fill your loving cup at this deep pool and know that I will give to you all there is to give. Consanguineous Deliverer._

It was a long spell, complex, eight verses while he traced out a pattern against her skin.

As he held her close to him, there were dozens of thoughts chasing one another through his brain. He struggled to focus on the even pulse of his mana, trying to be a metronome for her small, cold body. He found that the only way he could do this was by carefully regulating his breathing, by tearing backwards through the pages of his past until he came to those first, early lessons when he had first begun to learn how to calm his temper, how to rein in his fear.

 _Mind your temper, Hiero,_  Violet had often said to him.  _I can't mind it for you._

It was strange to think of Violet here, now, with Amoretta as cold as winter in his arms, but he did, and oddly, it gave him courage.

This was very contrary and seemed backwards and mixed up, as if he were falling head first down a rabbit hole. Generally, whenever Violet crossed his mind, she dragged a bloody swath of his failures behind her like a train of corpses. The Violet in his mind never accused him. She did not have to. He was perfectly capable of accusing, convicting, and sentencing himself. She only stood as a sad, mute witness to the pathetic horrors that he had wrought with his own hands. The Violet of his heart never spoke to him. She  _could not_  speak. It was as if someone had cut out her tongue, and this had always been acutely unsatisfying, because the Violet of the flesh had never ever been at a loss for words.

If she had accused him, if she had berated him, he could have found more comfort in punishing himself, but she did none of those things. The Violet of memory said nothing.

Usually.

But then there were strange, wonderful moments, rare and unforeseen, when she seemed to stand at his shoulder, her fingers against the back of his neck, and whisper words directly into his ear, so that he felt her hot breath. These moments were like vivid hallucinations of the Violet of the flesh, so eerily real and vital that he briefly forgot that she was dead and buried and he expected her to slip her arm through his, as she had often done, hanging on his shoulder.

These were the times he could remember Violet as she had been, live and warm and violently in love with everything. These were the times he could remember back past the night that was gouged into his soul like a barricade, into the forbidden territory where his most sacred altar stood, back to the heavily beaten ground where Violet's love was so thick and inescapable that it lay in piles, piles that he had at one time kept very carefully sorted out.

Amoretta had said to him, _I can see her fingerprints all over you. I can read all about her when you show me your heart._

The girl in his arms seemed so certain of what Violet thought and felt that he found it unnerving, particularly when he could never be certain that he wasn't loathed and despised, never except in those potent moments of nirvana when he remembered her so forcefully it was as if he had been struck in the head.

 _She would have laughed,_  Amoretta had told him, and then she had laughed at him herself, not unkindly, but gently, passionately, with all the unconditional tidings that Amoretta brought like urchins clinging to her skirts.

He loved her. He loved her impossibly. He loved the both of them: one dead and one near death, clinging to life only through a thread he had tied around her little finger. He wondered what the one would have thought of the other. Violet would have surely called Amoretta a kitten, then put a pillow case over her head and tickled her until she wet herself, screaming and giggling and kicking. Amoretta would have hung on Violet with stars in her eyes, like a child begging for bedtime stories. They would have pulled at one another, like binary stars, trading laughter and energy and poorly thought out plans that became more well thought out plans. Together, they would have made more than mischief. Together, they would have made paradise.

It was there in one strange, brilliant instant that seemed to explode slowly in a long streak of color that reached the far horizon of eternity, the past and present overlapping like two sheets of acetone laid over one another to form a composite picture: the feeling of Violet at his shoulder, and Amoretta cradled in his arms.

He could not say if he was delirious and hallucinating. He could not say at all, but he held fast to the memory of Amoretta's laughter and the feeling of Violet's fingers. He was falling. He had fallen. He would fall. He would continue to fall. He was ever-falling.

This was the position into which they had placed him.

* * *

Amoretta sat groggily up, rubbing at her eyes. She was in Grabiner's workshop, on the same battered sofa where he'd laid her down for the first time. She shivered a little as she felt the morning air on her bare skin because she wasn't wearing a shirt, only her camisole. Dimly she remembered having taken her shirt off in the bedroom. Looking down at the sofa she realized that Grabiner had been sleeping next to her, that they had both been somehow wedged together on the narrow length of the old sofa. His cloak had been around them both.

Grabiner looked exhausted. He was sleeping with his mouth slightly open, his hair completely in his face. One of his arms was still around her, and the other had been under her.

Then she turned her head and realized that there were at least three diagnostic spells layered in the air in front of her.

There, sitting quietly in a chair, his staff across his lap, sat Rail Finch. He gave her a brief nod when she noticed him and then silently laid a finger to her lips. She nodded, and then he came over to help her off the sofa. Grabiner didn't stir as she drew away from him, but she took the time to carefully tuck his cloak around him. He was sleeping in his breeches, without his shirt on.

Professor Finch took one last look at the diagnostic spells and then dismissed them, offering her his arm. She took it tentatively, and he led her out into the hallway and finally out onto the back terrace. Once they were out on the stones and Amoretta was blinking in the bright morning sun, Finch shrugged out of his dusty corduroy robe and put it around her shoulders.

Only then did he speak.

"The whole house is asleep," he explained. "And considering the night they had, I'd hate to wake them just yet." He looked her over appraisingly. "It's good to see you out and saying good morning to another sunrise. You seem awfully anxious to shake hands with the grim reaper, little lady."

"What happened?" Amoretta asked, looking down at herself. She couldn't remember anything after sitting down on the bed. "I fell asleep again?" she wondered. She had been very tired and confused.

Finch shook his head. "It ain't that simple," he said. "Would that it was. No, the seal Hieronymous put on that wound finally gave way under the strain of the curse, and it began to feed on you again. While it was growing, it began draining you of your mana quicker than shit through a goose. Eventually you got so weak that your body stopped breathing mana. You basically began to slowly suffocate."

Amoretta nervously pushed Finch's robe back to look at her shoulder and was distressed to find a strange pattern like an elaborate tattoo all around the bandaged wound.

"Don't worry, young missus," Finch said gravely. "This time I sealed that curse myself with Methodist Union holy magic and unicorn blood. It's again in check. Now that we know that the damned curse is always beating against the edge of its confines, we can keep reinforcing the seal as often as necessary and keep it from growing."

"But if it does break the seal," Amoretta asked tentatively, "Then it will grow again? It will grow bigger than it is now?"

Reluctantly Finch nodded. "The curse is trying to get at your heart and your brain," he said. "Once it gets that far, it'll be able to influence your thoughts, maybe even your actions. That's the sort of curse it is."

Amoretta shivered and Finch comfortingly patted her on the head.

"I know it's a mess to consider, girl," he said. "But it's got a ways to go before that happens, and we're all of us working to keep you safe and whole, Hieronymous most of all. That man obviously loves you more than he loves his own life." Then Rail Finch shook his head, saying, "Although if I hadn't gotten here when I did he might have killed the both of you by shooting bottles of cat piss. That damned idiot had had  _two_ of them in half an hour, and planned to down  _two more_. He was oversaturating his system with mana, which is a damn fool idea if I ever heard one."

"Cat piss?" Amoretta asked in confusion and Finch laughed as if he enjoyed hearing her swear.

"Unlit Vital Essence is what they call it," he said. "But everyone knows it tastes like cat piss. It's a mana elixir. Technically speaking, humans can drink it, but it's still somewhat poisonous. He was certainly feeling it by the time I managed to detoxify his system. That's why he's sleeping like a dead man now. He fed you on his own mana for about five hours until we could get you breathing on your own again. That's exhausting work, and it wore him plumb out." He paused and then seemed to be considering whether he ought to offer this last bit of information. "He cried when we finally got you breathing on your own again. I swear," he said, shading his eyes and looking out to sea, "Loving you is bound to kill him, if the last few months is any indication."

Amoretta flushed and looked at the ground, unsure of what to say.

But then Professor Finch chuckled, "Really, I'm pretty damned jealous, girl. I've never met anyone in seventy three years of life that stirs my blood the way you stir his. That's something to hold onto with both hands."

Shyly, Amoretta asked, "Professor Finch, what do you think of Hieronymous?"

"He's a horse's ass," Finch answered immediately. "He's a hardheaded idiot who always does things his own way regardless of what anybody else tells him," he said, and seemed to have very clear opinions on the subject. "He can be hard to understand, but he's a good man. This world may be filled with vague, wishy-washy people but Hieronymous ain't one of them. Sometimes he's a dog chasing his own tail. He won't do anything that's good for him and he likes to stew. He can be a bit of a brat, but he's an excellent wizard and a gifted duellist. Depending on the circumstances, and if he had a second, he could probably take me if I wasn't handling myself right, and let me tell you girl, that's pretty high praise, coming from me."

"So you like him?" Amoretta asked speculatively. "I mean, you  _really_ like him."

"That idiot's one of the only friends I've got left alive," Finch guffawed. "I'd  _better_ like him."

"I like him too," Amoretta said honestly. "Very much."

Finch snorted again, shaking his head. "Yeah, I'd gathered that."

Amoretta smiled then, warm and lovely in the sunlight. "I know," she said. "I just really wanted to say it to someone. I just wanted someone else to know, that I don't just love him, that I really do  _like_ him. I wouldn't want anything different than what I have." She put her hand over the strange mark on her shoulder and tried to be brave. "Even if that means I won't have it for very long," she said at last.

"Don't go diggin' your own grave yet, little lady," Finch said, patting her on the back comfortingly. "You're alive, and that means your sole objective is to fight death with tooth and claw. That's all the living can do: fight to keep living."

Amoretta took a deep breath of the salty sea air and then let it out.

"I know," she said, nodding. "I'm not a quitter. I'm going to fight and fight and fight and fight. I don't want to die. I like being alive. It's just, if - "

"If nothing," Finch cut her off. "You fight. When the time comes, it'll come. They say 'no man shall know the day and the hour.'"

Amoretta's brow scrunched up briefly. "Professor Finch, that's about the second coming," she complained and he grinned.

"It sure is, ladybug, but it got my point across," he said as he winked at her. "We're all mortals, and we're all gonna die someday, so there really ain't no use worrying about it. The thing to do is to fill your life with color and song, so that when the time does come, you won't have any regrets."

Amoretta thought of Violet Lore and nodded very deliberately.

"That's what I've decided," she said with certainty. "To live with no regrets. I'll do the best that I can at everything." Then she paused and shook her head. "No," she said. "I'll do better than the best that I can. I'll do the best  _there is._ "

Rail Finch seemed pleased by her resolution and gave her another affectionate pat on the head.

As they stood together on the terrace, at last Amoretta's eyes drifted back toward the house.

"How is everybody?" she wondered. "You said I gave them an awfully hard time." She could not keep the guilt out of her voice.

"Little Miss Middleton is asleep on the couch in the front room," Finch said, "The butler and the housekeeper finally went to sleep when I made them. I sent the eldest Danson boy over to watch the kids at the school for me. I'll go and relieve him once I'm sure Hieronymous is on his feet again."

They were silent for a moment, and Amoretta listened to the sound of the chimerical birds nesting in the cliffs below them.

"Thank you for letting us use your car for the summer," she said. "I've just realized that I hadn't thanked you yet."

"It ain't nothing," Rail Finch said with a wry smile and a shrug. "I'm just glad you could get some use out of her. You be good to Gertrude, and Gertrude will be good to you."

"Gertrude?" Amoretta asked, her eyes lighting up.

"Didn't Hieronymous even tell you her name?" Finch demanded, seemingly quite offended.

"I guess it just slipped his mind," Amoretta attempted to make excuses for her absent husband. "She is a wonderful car, though. I just love her." She thought that admiring Gertrude might be the way to appeal to Professor Finch's vanity and she was right.

He snapped his fingers once and nodded, agreeing, "She is a dilly."

"I'm glad you came to visit," Amoretta said, idly looking over the house which had already become the seat of such warm memories. It really was her home now. "Only I wish it had been under nicer circumstances." She leaned forward slightly. "You know, I've been practicing the piano. Hieronymous thought that maybe we could all play together at some point. You play the violin, right?"

Finch snorted. "I don't know how many times I've told that boy, but no, I do not play the violin," he said, and then snapped his heel hard against the stone. "I play  _the fiddle_. I've been fiddlin' since I was knee-high to a hickory stump. I'll stumble through Hieronymous's pokey chamber music, and I guess it is soothing if you want to take a nap, but what I really like is some good old rockabilly. If you learn to play honky-tonk piano, I may steal you away from the boy yet."

Amoretta laughed at that and nodded her head. "I'll do my best, but I'm still a beginner," she reminded him. "I might be so awful at first that you give up on me completely."

"I doubt that," Finch said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Hieronymous, Petunia, and I have been playing together for about six years now, I think, but when we first started together we sounded like somebody murderin' cats with an out-of-tune accordion. I was out of practice, and Hieronymous was so moody I swear he played out of tempo on purpose, and there was Petunia, driving us along like she had a stick and a carrot." He shook his head briefly. "It's a good thing that we don't sound quite so bad now, otherwise we might be arrested for disturbing the peace."

Amoretta giggled, bringing a hand to her mouth, but then she heard a sound over her shoulder that made her turn around where she stood.

Someone had opened the back door of the cottage and was standing framed by the lintel.

Grabiner, having shrugged on his robe, was blinking in the morning sun. It took a moment for his eyes adjust to the sunlight, but then they focused on her. There was a moment of pure, absolute silence as they stared at one another, and then he was running toward her as if she were the rarest creature ever graced by the eye of heaven. She spread her arms wide as he came upon her, grateful that he was awake, and this was all the invitation that he needed. He leaned down and seized her around the waist, pulling her against his chest and turning around with her in his arms as if she were a very little girl, as if he would throw her up and catch her. The sun was warm on the top of her head as she felt him bury his face in her hair and kiss her.

He held her very tightly for several moments, and she felt his heart in his chest, and the tenseness of his muscles, and the great flood of his relief.

At last he loosened his grip on her so that he could look at her, but he did not put her back down on the ground. It was as if he had not yet had enough of her, and was unwilling to turn her loose.

She saw his eyes soften as he looked at her, and she gave him her smile, a little trodden on, a little bedraggled, but lovely just the same.

"I'm glad to see you," he said gently. "For a while I thought - " he shook his head. "It's not important. The only thing that matters to me is now, here, this moment." He brought one of her pale hands to his face and pressed his lips against it hard. "I love you," he said quietly. "I'm sorry about everything." His eyes shifted sidelong and he said, "I owe you a much greater apology than that for more things than I can count, but I get the feeling that you're not interested in hearing it," he murmured into her fingers.

She shook her head and said, "You're right. I'm not interested in the slightest," she said with feigned severity, but then her smile blossomed again, sweet and genuine. "The only thing that matters to me is  _you_. So long as you're living and breathing, you don't owe me any apologies."

He sat her delicately on her feet and then looked down at her so intently that Amoretta could not help the flush creeping into her cheeks. The front of his robe was hanging open because he'd just pulled it on over his bare shoulders and she could see the hollow of his throat and the sharp lines of his clavicles. His eyes were very heavy, and she could feel the weight of his  _intention_. It was as if he were ready to devour her right there. He put one of his hands under her chin and turned her face up, resting his thumb against her bottom lip.

"You are impossible," he said.

And then he bent his head and kissed her. With all his deliberateness, with all his intensity, he was so overcome by his own emotions that he did not kiss her perfectly on the mouth but rather a little low, and off center. But then he had caught her lower lip in his teeth and tugged on it gently before slipping his hand across her throat and around the back of her head to cup the base of her skull, his fingers tangled up in her dark hair. He tasted all of her then, like the grace of heaven on his tongue, and her mouth was hot and small, packed with her teeth like little bits of pearl. In that brief moment, a cross-section of time had been cut from the both of them, a brilliant, painful, beautiful vivisection, and she understood his desperation and felt the feeble brush of his relief even as she tugged insistently on the front of his robe, one hand against the bare flesh of his throat, feeling his blood beating powerfully under her fingertips. It was as if she sought to knit them tighter together than they were. tighter than they ever had been. It was a kiss to mend what had not been broken.

As Grabiner pulled away from the kiss and looked down at her, she could see all of the man she loved in his face, as if he wore it like skin, or a veil. It was all hanging off of him, layers and layers of his transparent, gossamer self: all of the agony, all of the ecstasy, all of the grief and sorrow and brilliance. He looked at her as if she were reverend and she looked at him as if she were willing to be the cause of his death, if that was the cost of giving him her life and her love.

She said, but didn't say,  _If I kill you, then I will kill you very well._

He said, but didn't say,  _You are the beginning and the end. You are everything in between._

Amoretta was overcome by the simple, easy joy of being alive and she laughed, leaning forward to wrap her arms around his waist and press her face against his chest, Rail Finch's overlarge robe slipping off one of her shoulders. As she held him, he began to gently stroke her hair.

At last, Amoretta let go of him, although she moved to take his hand, holding the large, bony fingers entwined both of her hands. When she remembered that Professor Finch was on the terrace with them she turned to find that the older professor had politely turned to offer them privacy, and was leaning against the terrace's balustrade, staring out at sea.

"This is the best morning," Amoretta said, turning her face up to look at the sky. "This is the best morning of all mornings that have ever been or ever will be. I'm sorry," she said, ducking her head briefly, "That I can be so strange and awkward. I feel like I'm a little ember that you keep safe by cupping your hands. I know there's so much I still need to learn about everything, I know that I need to become much stronger, and I know that there are terrible things outside the warmth of your protection, but even if I have to split my skin or rupture the boundaries of this universe, I swear to you," she said, and her voice rang with sudden power and sincerity, "When I finally rise, I will shake the foundations of the world. I will do what remains to be done."

Her intensity had silenced him and she felt his hand go slack in hers, even as he searched her eyes, her name escaping his mouth as a voiceless whisper.

"It wasn't a threat," she said very sweetly, and the strange spell of her ominous prediction was broken. "It was a promise," she explained. "To you and to myself. I have understood the true nature of the ground," she said mysteriously, and Grabiner's hand tightened in hers again.

"What are you talking about?" he asked in confusion.

"The future," she said with a wistful smile. "And the past."

And then without explaining herself further she led him off toward Rail Finch.

* * *

The rest of the day passed easily. When Amoretta and the two professors returned to the cottage they found that Tansy was already up and putting on a big breakfast. Grabiner persuaded Finch to stay for the morning meal and Amoretta went upstairs with Ellen to wash her face and put on some clothes so that she could finally return the thaumatology professor's robe, which had the faint odor of the dungeon hanging on it.

In the washroom and before she could get properly dressed, Ellen unexpectedly hugged her, holding her very still for several seconds. Amoretta patted the blonde's head comfortingly as Ellen shed a couple of tears on Amoretta's recently bandaged shoulder.

"Don't you leave me," Ellen said, squeezing her hard. "I wouldn't know what to do if I lost you. I was  _so afraid_  last night - "

"You don't have to be afraid any more," Amoretta said gently, giving Ellen a squeeze. "I won't go gentle into that good night."

"You'll rage and rage against the dying of the light?" Ellen answered with a laugh that Amoretta had bled from her despite her distress. She shook her head as she released Amoretta, biting her lip. Amoretta could feel Ellen's eyes on the strange ring of marks that circled the handprint on her shoulder. "I just wish you didn't have to suffer any more. You've already suffered enough."

At that Amoretta smiled. "I'll never be done with suffering," she said with certainty. "That's the price of being alive. I don't mind it. It really feels pretty good. Even failing over and over again, even knowing that you're straining toward something impossible. It feels pretty good. I think everything is in the means, and not the ends."

"You know, you're like a little star," Ellen said as Amoretta leaned on the sink and began to wash her face.

"I am?" Amoretta asked into the washcloth. She did not seem very starlike at that particular moment. She had gotten soap into her mouth by talking into the washcloth and was trying unsuccessfully to spit it out.

"Twinkle, twinkle little star," Ellen sang softly. "How I wonder what you are." She wet her own washcloth. "I really do, you know," she said seriously. "I really wonder what you are. You're enigmatic."

Amoretta stuck her tongue out. "Enigmatic is just a nice way of saying 'weird.' It's like how we call the Toads 'eldritch.'"

"Well," Ellen admitted with a slow smile, "You  _are_ pretty weird."

At this pronouncement Amoretta leaped upon Ellen and began to tickle her mercilessly and could only be subdued when the larger girl wrestled her to the ground and held both of her arms behind her back. By this point both the girls were out of breath from tickling and laughter, and Ellen's fears had been eased by Amoretta's effortless vitality.

When they descended to breakfast several minutes later, Grabiner had an announcement for the both of them. Classes at Revane would be suspended for a week's time. It was a holiday for the both of them. At the end of the week, he would evaluate Amoretta's fitness to continue and reinstate their regular schedule based on his findings.

"Of course, Miss Middleton," Grabiner said to Ellen seriously, "You are always welcome in our home regardless, even if class is not in session."

Ellen had flushed at that and stammered a thank you while Amoretta elbowed her in the ribs. Then Grabiner offered his arm to his wife and escorted her into breakfast, with Ellen and Rail Finch following behind.

After breakfast Professor Finch at last departed for the school, promising to send William back to Revane. Ellen remained in the little cottage, reluctant to leave Amoretta so soon after such a crisis, especially after Grabiner had extended such an invitation.

William returned around lunch time, bringing Donald and Luke Pheifer with him.

"They insisted," he apologized to Amoretta. "They wouldn't take Professor Finch's word for it. They had to make sure you were all right themselves."

The two boys had been reluctant for the first few moments, as if unsure how to treat someone who has yet again returned from the brink of death, but then Donald was mussing her hair and giving her noogies and Luke had taken her hand strongly. Then even that collapsed and she was soon hanging on Donald's neck while Luke squeezed the both of them until Donald made a noise like a kazoo that had been stepped on.

Grabiner stood back during all of this, calmly watching her being adored.

Ellen, standing next to him, wondered if he was jealous. He didn't seem to be. Mostly, what she felt from him was an overwhelming flood of relief. His eyes never left Amoretta, no matter who she was with or what she was doing. It was enough to make her feel giddy, although why Grabiner watching Amoretta should make her feel so heady she could not say. Even wondering about it was enough to make the awkward girl blush and to hide her interest behind the thin pretense of reading.

Amoretta enjoyed the day, with her house filled with friends and laughter and music and everyday joy. But she did notice that William did not really talk to Donald, and that Grabiner did not really speak to William. Ellen spent much of the day pretending to read a book about traditional Scandinavian knitting, although she did laugh at Donald's jokes and smiled when Amoretta asked her to pick a record.

Even when the boys went home, acting as escort to Ellen, who left Revane only reluctantly, because she had not packed an overnight bag, Amoretta well understood that not all of her immediate problems had been solved.

William still lingered at Revane, and her husband was unwilling to consider having him as an apprentice.

She resolved to sleep on it.

* * *

The next day, after leaving her in the great room with a slow, thoughtful kiss, Grabiner retired to his workshop, leaving Amoretta to spend the day in the company of William and Ellen, who arrived in time for lunch.

Amoretta was surprised to find that Ellen was no longer quite so strange and awkward around William. Something about the crisis had given her strength and poise, so now she seemed quite natural around the former wolf. Amoretta ultimately decided that it would be good for the both of them. Without the rose-colored lens of heroworshipping, perhaps Ellen could begin to understand the William that Amoretta knew. It would be good for him, she thought, to have someone else to talk to. Beyond that, she wanted William to see Ellen as she really was, fierce and brave and sometimes silly and as deep as a well. It always gave her pleasure to introduce her friends to one another, even over and over again.

But despite a night of sleeping curled up at Grabiner's side, warm and safe in her little bed, no ready solutions to the apprenticeship problem had presented themselves.

This was how Amoretta came to decide that there were no ready solutions and that alternative measures had to be considered.

* * *

After dinner, Grabiner returned to his work for an hour or so, then retired to the upstairs library, and this was where Amoretta found him.

Grabiner was pensively sitting in a chair with his legs stretched out before him, but he wasn't reading. A book lay open in his lap, but he was ignoring it. Amoretta quietly closed the door behind her and slowly crept around until she was standing in front of him.

He looked up at her briefly but his expression remained clouded. That was understandable. The past day's events had been very difficult for both of them and she got the feeling that whatever he had spent the day doing behind the locked workshop door, it had not given him the answers he had sought. He was tense and strained.

This would be a fight. She knew it would be a fight, but it was a fight worth fighting. She knew him a little better now, after all the thinking she had done. This was a fight she had to fight.

She took a deep breath and steeled herself before speaking.

"Hieronymous, I know what you've told me about considering the apprenticeship, but William wants to learn from you," Amoretta said seriously. "He's not being frivolous. He's not trying to purposefully waste your time. He admitted to me that what he wants for the future is to become a man like you are. He admires you, and I believe that admiration is genuine. Of course he idolizes you, but it's not just that. He can sense that you have something in you that he needs to understand."

At this Grabiner laughed and the sound was harsh and devoid of mirth.

"What lofty heights he aspires to, 't _o be a man like me_ ,'" he mimicked her in a falsetto and then he snorted. "That's a tall order, considering how much misery I'd sown before I was twenty," Grabiner remarked, and his smile was dry and brittle. "Mr. Danson is considerably behind schedule, even if he does have all the right characteristics: he's foolish, arrogant, self-centered, negligent, and spoiled. He'd make an excellent understudy if I was interested in having one."

Amoretta bit her lip. "I hate it when you talk about yourself that way," she said.

"The only thing I'll ever teach that boy to be is a bitter, half-committed alcoholic," he spat back at her. "He doesn't belong here. His time with me is done."

"You're teaching me," Amoretta argued. "And I haven't become a half-committed alcoholic."

"This may have escaped your attention, but  _I did not marry William Danson_ ," Grabiner stormed, standing abruptly. "I don't owe him anything, and I have no interest in assisting him into an early grave. Wishing to be my apprentice is like asking to play Russian roulette with all the chambers fully loaded.  _I ruin the things I touch_. I teach half-witted school children the basics of control and form because I  _do not want them to become like me_. In what warped place in your imagination have you begun to think I would have any interest in molding someone in my own image? The world is an ugly place, and I'm one of the ugliest things in it. If you will recall, I gave you the same warning when you started following me around like a brain-addled puppy, but you never listen to anything that doesn't suit you." He forced his hands into his pockets and turned his back on her. "Fine. I'd rather you be with me than be dead, and those were the options we were presented with. I'm not a good man. You deserved better than me, but I'm far too selfish to ever consider giving you up, regardless of what's best for you."

A day of fruitless inquiries had left him feeling hard and difficult. He loved her terribly, but he found he could not say what he meant, that it all came out wrong because he was angry at himself, because he was frustrated by his own impotence. He could not sweep away her troubles easily, as he wished. He wanted to give her a life free from care and troubles, a life where she could sing to the flowers in her garden and talk to imaginary songbirds, but he could not really do this thing, and he knew it. He could not give her peace, and the only safety he could guarantee was tentative, figured out in green chalk like a warding circle, and easily washed away by an unexpected summer storm. He hated himself for not being able to give her what he wanted her to have.

"I'd like to see you  _try_ giving me up," Amoretta shot back, her eyes shining fiercely in the lamplight. "I'm afraid I'm a chronic condition, whether you like it or not. I'd rather be with you than anywhere else, in this world or any Other.  _I'll_  decide what I do with my life, and you'll send me flowers to congratulate me on my decisions,  _whatever_  they are. Entertain whatever fantasies you like about how you could send me away if you only had a stronger moral character, but you should understand this by now if you understand anything: _you will never fight me and win_."

She was chasing him the way a terrier chases a fox into his hole: relentlessly, and he bared his teeth like a cornered animal.

"You ought to carefully consider before you  _threaten me_ ," Grabiner growled back between gritted teeth.

"I'm not threatening you!" Amoretta said, throwing her arms up above her head. "I am informing you of the state of nature."

"You are being disrespectful and rude," Grabiner said, wheeling to face her again. Again he retreated into his familiar asylum: codes of conduct. Next he would call her by her maiden name. He was trying to force distance between them while hating to give up an inch of her, longing for the familiar comfort of her intimate, commonplace presence. He was fighting to push her away and hold her fast at the same time.

"I'm sorry you think so, but I'm afraid you can't ground me for speaking out of turn!" Amoretta shouted back. " _I'm your wife._ "

"I will do just that if you refuse to behave like a civilized person," he retorted.

"Sometimes the only way to get through to you is to be wildly uncivilized," Amoretta said, stamping her foot against the floor for emphasis. She smiled strangely, and it was a mixture of her happiness and anger and worry. "I love you, and I respect you, and I believe in you. But that doesn't mean I'll just always do as you say, or think as you tell me to think. I trust you. I have faith in you. But it's my responsibility to tell you when I think you're wrong about something. And right now, I think you're wrong. I think you're wrong about yourself, and I think you're wrong about William. And I was just being honest when I said you couldn't be rid of me if you tried. Oath or no oath, I'll always be your shadow, or you'll be mine. I'm not a carapace that you can just shed whenever it all becomes too much for you. I'll always be here," she said, placing her hand over his heart. "Under your skin. That's something I decided for myself. I love you down deep in my meat and bones, Hieronymous." She shook her head. "That's not something you could shift even if you had the weight of the world behind you. That's why you'll never win a fight against me," she said with a beautiful, wistful smile. "You can't knock me down. My roots are too deep."

Grabiner seemed to struggle with himself as she spoke, and as she finished, he shook his head. "Amoretta," he said, "I understand that you mean well - "

"Hieronymous," Amoretta broke in passionately, "William isn't you. And even if he is arrogant, even if he is foolish and self-centered - and I don't believe he is - why punish him for those faults when he's trying so hard to better himself? Didn't you tell me that there was no reason to be ashamed of being ignorant?"

"That was that and this is - "

"This is the same thing," Amoretta insisted. "He wants to become a better person than he is now. I  _believe_ that. And he thinks you can teach him how. And I believe  _that_ too. You're the person you are now because of all that's happened, all you've done, all you've learned by doing. Even if you don't think you're qualified,  _I do_. I think you're absolutely magnificent. You're the best man I've ever met."

"You only think that - "

"Because I haven't met very many," Amoretta joined in and finished his indictment with him, mimicking his scowl, but then her face fell into another wistful smile. "And it doesn't matter how many dozens or hundreds or thousands of people I meet, because I've already met the best one," Then her eyes hardened again as she spoke. "It doesn't matter if it's hard for other people to see. It doesn't matter if you don't believe it.  _I know it's true._  And I also know the only reason you don't believe me is because you're afraid. You're afraid to even _look at me_ because you know I'm right, and you can't stand to imagine that anyone,  _even me_ , might find you worthwhile."

" _I am not afraid of you_ ," Grabiner roared, wheeling to face her, his teeth gritted together again.

"You're not just afraid of me," Amoretta retorted. "You're afraid of him too. You're afraid of what you'll learn teaching him. You're afraid of what he might teach you about yourself, not because you might find something ugly, but because you might find something good, something worth keeping, something worth loving about yourself."

She drew one hand to her chest and put it over her heart as she spoke as sincerely as she could. "You're a good teacher, Hieronymous. I know that better than anyone. You've taught me so much, and I've got a lot more to learn. It's not just in class either. It's not just when you've got a book in your hands. It's always. You never  _stop_ being a teacher. It's how you think, even if you don't want to admit it. I know you dutifully taught William at school, but he's still got more to learn. No, he's not perfect. Of course he makes mistakes. No he doesn't already know all it is that you know. He doesn't have your patience. He doesn't have your focus. He doesn't have your discipline, but these are all things he can learn, that he wants to learn. If he already knew everything, then it really would be a waste of time trying to teach him. Besides," she said with a smile, tilting her head slightly to the side, "I think it would be wise to teach him, not just for his benefit, not just for your benefit, but for my benefit too. I think he's got a lot of potential, and I think you think that too, or you wouldn't be trying so hard to chase him away. You said that I had to learn to be canny, and so I'm being canny. He'd make a good ally, and you could teach him to be better than he is right now - which is already pretty good. By nature, he's a very loyal person. I don't think that's something he thinks about himself, but I know it's true from talking to him. He also even more distrustful of Damien than you are, so you've got that in common. He's come here looking for acceptance. If you give him your hand, he'll take it. You told me that you're a man with enemies, and I'm willing to believe that," she said with a weak smile. "But I want you to be a man with  _friends_. I don't think we can get where we need to go alone." She thought about what he had told her in the room filled with wedding presents, when he had resolved to stop avoiding his responsibilities as Lord Halifax. "At the end of that road there are no open doors," she said.

Grabiner made a sound that was angry and resigned, and he seemed to collapse into the wing chair by the window, cupping his head in his hands.

"Hieronymous?" she asked worriedly after several seconds had passed in silence.

He ran his hand through his hair as he sat back in the scraggy armchair.

"Damn it all," he said crossly. "I wish I'd married a stupid girl. Then at least I'd be able to have my way some of the time." He closed his eyes. "But I can't deny anything you've said. You're right. Aggravatingly right. You're being sensible. Obnoxiously sensible. I am being a coward, and you have caught me at it." He sounded very tired.

Amoretta wrung her hands in distress.

"Hieronymous - "

He raised a hand to silence her, and then opened his eyes a sliver to look at her, standing there, her hands clasped in front of her chest. She looked deeply concerned.

He gave her a pale smile, an attempt to give her comfort.

"I am a coward," he said slowly, "But when I'm with you, I find that I can be a better man. You may be busy and meddlesome, but you're always pushing forward - not hard, not gently, but with warmth, with courage, with sentiment. I love that about you. You're right that I don't think much of myself, but when I'm with you, I feel compelled to be bigger than I am. I really want to be the man you imagine me to be." He sighed and closed his eyes again.

"You have won, you tiny Caesar," he said and then rolled his head along the back of the chair to look at her fully. "I will give William Danson a chance."

Her face lit up.

"Really Hieronymous?" she asked, her hands clasped in front of her. "Really really and truly?"

"Really and truly," he answered dryly. "Don't get too ahead of yourself, young lady. I said I'd give him a chance. That doesn't mean I'll accept him. I'll give him a trial as my apprentice,  _and I will give him hell,_ " he said ominously. "If he still wants to stay after a week of that, if he hasn't run away to his comfortable position in the city, then I'll hear his oath."

Amoretta clapped her hands. "Oh thank you, Hieronymous," she gushed. "I know you won't regret it."

"Why are you so happy about this?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. "You're acting like I've just promised to take you to Disney World. It's not  _your_ apprenticeship that you were fighting for," he pointed out.

"I know," Amoretta laughed with giddy relief, crossing the space between them to sit down in his lap without invitation. "But it was just - it felt like a very important thing. Not  _the_ first step, really, but _a_  first step. A first step, after a first step, after a first step." She smiled and the roses bloomed in her cheeks. "I feel like we're moving forward, little by little." She put her arms around his neck fondly.

He leaned down so his forehead touched hers and said, "I don't think I'll ever really plumb the depths of you. You're such a strange little animal." He gathered her up in his arms, and she was small, like a bundle of twigs. "I'm glad to count you as my ally, Marianne Amoretta Grabiner," he said seriously, giving her a steady squeeze, so he felt the live heat of her body.

She was material. She lived. She breathed. She existed.

Amoretta laughed. "And I'm glad that you recognize me as such, Hieronymous Grabiner."

And then she kissed him.

* * *

Amoretta demanded that Grabiner inform William of his decision immediately, rather than waiting until the morning to break the news, so as to spare the boy another night of anxiety.

She induced him to go by promising a make-up kiss when he returned.

He had leaned down to kiss her then, ruffling her hair, "Don't think you'll not make good on that promise, Mrs. Grabiner. You have that earlier tantrum to pay penance for, after all. You'll have to be _very, very nice_  to make up for it," he said seriously.

"Well, then I suppose you're about to find out  _exactly how nice I can be_ , only let's be sure to be reciprocal about things," she had returned with a trill, and then tweaking her earlobe lightly with a wry smile, Grabiner had departed to glower over William.

Amoretta hoped the glowering would be slightly more agreeable this time around, but given what Grabiner had threatened about running William through a wringer, she knew the former wolf had hard days ahead. Her husband could be a merciless taskmaster. She wasn't sure if it was the professor in him, the aristocrat, or the duelist that made him so exacting, but as an overseer he could be a veritable nightmare. One did it until one got it right or one collapsed from exhaustion, whichever came first.

And yet despite how hard he could be, no matter how difficult Grabiner might make things, she knew he would be fair and honest in his judgement because that was the sort of man he was. Once he had decided to take someone on he would be patient and responsible with them, even if he otherwise seemed ruthless. Amoretta had learned this through personal experience. She had faith in William. Grabiner would give him a chance, and if William truly wanted to be her husband's apprentice, then she felt in her guts that he would succeed. He was not the type to give up easily, she thought. His continued presence at Revane was testament enough to that.

Feeling contented, optimistic, and with a certain thrill of  _anticipation_ , Amoretta was soon fussing through her pajama drawer, trying to locate something appropriately penitent for her promised apology while loudly singing along to the Journey song that had erupted spontaneously in her brain. She thought they could probably hear her down the hall, but that was  _by design_  rather than by accident.

Naturally, she didn't  _really_ think she owed Grabiner an apology for her behavior - which had been altogether necessary, she thought - but it was a very good excuse for being particularly tractable, and she was never one to pass on a good excuse. She didn't really need much of an excuse these days, but excuses did make nice window dressing, she thought. She had discovered through experiment that Grabiner would warmly pursue  _any_ attempt on her part to go to bed with him, which was really  _very_ gratifying. Besides, she quite enjoyed being conciliatory. For her it was the mark of a victory rather than a defeat. Such smugness might have made her mildly insufferable, but it also made her exceptionally gracious and generous. While both were qualities she already had in abundance, the professor appreciated any glut of them, particularly in the bedroom.

Amoretta was interrupted from her careful contemplation of frilly underwear by the familiar chime of the little blue door in the clearing.

Someone had come to call.

As Grabiner was still likely busy reading William the riot act, and she was still quite dressed, Amoretta went to the hallway and called out, "Don't worry, I'll get it."

"Whoever it is, don't let them in. I don't care if it's the Queen Mother or Merlin the God Damned Magician," Grabiner bellowed back from the other bedroom. "I'm tired of houseguests."

Amoretta rolled her eyes but her smile was affectionate. He was back in his own temper now. This was a Grabiner she was accustomed to handling.

"Your wish is my command, Moon of My Delight," she called back down the hallway and then pulled the bedroom door closed to answer the chime in relative quiet.

The first thing she heard after twisting her fingers through the air was an ominous roll of thunder so loud it seemed to shake the rafters of the little cottage. That was strange, since the night outside was calm and peaceful. But over the spell came the distinct sound of a torrential downpour, every bit as wild as the one Amoretta had ordered some time ago.

"Who's calling?" Amoretta asked curiously. Whoever it was, she didn't envy them being out in the Vermont weather, no matter how much she enjoyed the rain.

It was a slightly hesitant voice that answered, sounding positively sodden. There was a sniffle and then, "It's Raven Darkstar," she said, and the absolute misery in her voice was plain. "I've come seeking hospitality." She sniffled again, and then sneezed before asking pitifully, "May I come in? It's completely awful out here."

Amoretta hesitated a minute, biting her lip. Hieronymous had been very clear about his feelings concerning other potential house guests. But then some weeks ago he had been equally clear on how important hospitality was in the witch world.

In the clearing, Raven let out a pitiful sob and Amoretta made up her mind.

"Yes," she said, already turning toward the bedroom door. "You can. Stay right there. I'll just be a minute."

"I'm not going anywhere," Raven replied, sounding froggy. "There isn't anywhere to go."

Amoretta dismissed the spell and was soon thundering down the stairs and into the great room. As she went out the front door, she called over her shoulder, "Better prepare another room, Cord. There'll be a fourth at breakfast tomorrow."


	8. Interstadial I: If I'm Onto You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine’s Day!
> 
> This chapter has only explicit content and does not exist to further the plot in any way. It’s just sex. Think of it like an unlockable H scene in a visual novel. It fits exactly where it is currently sitting, between chapter six and chapter seven.
> 
> You can skip to the next chapter without harming your understanding of the story at all.
> 
> But who am I kidding? I know what you’re here for. Anyway, if you skip this chapter, you’ll miss some great dialogue.
> 
> Just sayin’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Dominance/submission, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Bondage, Light Sado-Masochism, Biting

She was a vision in sea green polka dots.

Well, perhaps that was a slight exaggeration.

In her efforts to be alluring, Amoretta had settled on a very ordinary polka dotted pajama shirt with white piping and a pair of lacy panties that had more personality than substance. As always, she was a study in opposites, like a wholesome soda-counter milkshake with 90 proof liquor in the bottom of the glass.

She was a very unconventional sort of pinup, the kind that is primarily appealing only to the individual it has been tailored for. Surely her cable knit knee socks would not have topped any popular magazine's list of accessories to add zest to connubial encounters, but they suited her very well, perhaps because he had seen her in them so often, when she was either dressing or undressing. It added a strong element of familiarity to the scene, as if he had surprised her in the midst of putting on her pajamas. She had very carefully arranged herself so as to appear artless, and her appeal, as a result, was quite overwhelming. Her lips were red and the set of her smile was faint, but  _certain_ , as if she were in deep consideration of downright immoral subjects.

Perhaps more than anything, it was her obvious interest and enthusiasm that drove the final nail into the coffin.

But the red lipstick had been a sublime touch.

"Now," Grabiner said seriously, folding his arms over his chest. "It's time I took you to task for your incredible catalogue of misdemeanors. You've really driven me to the end of my wits these last few days. At various times this week you have flagrantly disregarded my wishes, run roughshod over the rules of this house, pointedly ignored my advice, and been outrageously disrespectful and downright mutinous in your attitudes. And that does not even touch upon your recent  _vocal_   _performance_ , which was  _mildly_  disruptive to a very serious conversation, much to my chagrin, even if not to my surprise," he counted out her crimes on his fingers one by one. When he spoke it was with mild exasperation, but the corner of his mouth was turned up just a little, an indication that he was enjoying himself. "It is time for you to be appropriately penitent, you wayward little dilettante."

"Are you going to make me write lines?" She asked with interest. "Maybe of risqué poetry: 'And made her smooth white shoulder bare, and all her yellow hair displaced.' I've never written lines before, but I understand it's  _the_  punishment handed down by dictatorial school masters. And anyway, I'm verypenitent  _already_ ," Amoretta said, her own smile turning up at the corner, because she was  _certainly_  enjoying herself. With her teeth pressed thoughtfully against her lower lip she looked anything but repentant. She was enjoying herself so much that she wriggled in place, bouncing slightly, her loose curls swaying and springing around her face. This was genuinely distracting because of the way her satin pajama shirt slid over her bare thighs, alternately revealing and concealing the delicate pink of her positively florid panties. "In fact, if you'd bother to investigate, you'd find out that I'm so penitent that they really ought to dedicate a couple of churches to me, or maybe even a convent. I am  _at_   _least_  as penitent as St. Teresa of Avila and St. Mary Magdalen  _put_   _together_."

"Your taste in romantic poetry is, as usual, so dubious that it may well be criminal," Grabiner observed. "You are very lucky that I generally find both your cheekiness and your impiety equally endearing," he said, extending one finger in warning. There was a leading edge in his tone as he said, "We'll see how cheeky you are in about ten minutes."

"Well, now I'm  _really_ interested," Amoretta trilled in a singsong voice, leaning forward in anticipation.

She watched as he drew a simple rune in the air. It was red magic, an incantation that she immediately recognized. He had cast a warming spell.

"You're going to be more than interested," Grabiner predicted after finishing the spell. He sounded very deliberate, and he looked comfortably in control of the situation as he moved toward her. "I expect you'll soon be positively  _fervent_."

Amoretta could not help the flush that had risen in her cheeks and shyly looked down at the bedsheets as he approached her. Her bravery in the face of Grabiner was as usual, mostly bravado. She was the sort of girl who heedlessly turns on the sprinklers to dance in them like a free spirit and then shrieks when the water inexorably turns out to be cold. Of course, the temperature of the water never stopped Amoretta from dancing in the long run, and in the meantime, her bashfulness had a charm all its own.

"Sit very still," Grabiner advised, and then he very carefully began unbuttoning her pajama top.

For Amoretta, the waiting was extraordinarily difficult. Every brush of his fingertips against her shirt was a movement of satin against her skin and her breathing quickened as he slowly went about undressing her. He was taking his time, being careful to refrain from touching her outside of slowly popping the buttons out of their holes. Amoretta thought she might go mad as his knuckles came in contact with the fabric over her breast bone. The cheery polka dotted satin was smooth and warm against her skin, and as she fidgeted, trying to hold still while he ministered to her, it brushed against her nipples, causing her to bite at her lip.

"Please hurry, Hieronymous," Amoretta urged, still biting her lip.

He had only unbuttoned three of the buttons.

" _You_  need to learn patience," he answered evenly.

Amoretta made a small distressed sound in the back of her throat and moved to help him unbutton the shirt, because sitting so still while he touched her so delicately and deliberately was more than she could bear, but even as she moved, she heard his voice cut through the air over her head.

"No," he said simply, and with a great deal of authority. Amoretta was so surprised that she jumped and froze in place, her hands still on the fifth button of her shirt. Smoothly, Grabiner pushed her hands back to her sides, gentle, but firm. "Be patient, or I will teach you patience," he said, and there was the slight but potent edge in his voice again. It was a warning. It meant that he was through tolerating her silly antics, through getting dragged around and pushed around at her whim, through letting her reign as the impudent, loveable,  _rotten_  princess he allowed her to be a great deal of the time. It meant that circumstances were about to shift, at least for a while. Whenever he spoke that way, Amoretta paid very close attention to what he said. One word was enough to give her gooseflesh.

"Now sit still," he said again.

She sat very still, her cheeks pink, her heart racing.

At last he had finished with the final button and pushed the shirt over her shoulders so that it puddled around her. Because he had warned her to stay still, Amoretta did not move to push it out of the way. He was watching her very closely now, and she could feel his eyes taking in the pale, rosy fullness of her revealed self. Sometimes when he looked at her it was as if he was learning her shape with his eyes so he might later paint it more accurately with his fingertips. She flushed darker, particularly as she felt the warm flash of blood in her nipples as her appetites stirred. She wasn't exactly  _ashamed_  of her arousal, but she was a little embarrassed. She looked down again, unable to hold his gaze and folded her hands in front of her.

She looked up when she heard the subtle shift of items in one of the drawers of the bedside table and her eyes inadvertently widened when she realized that he had a length of crimson rope in his hands.

"What are you going to do with that?" she asked, mildly alarmed.

"I'm going to blindfold you, bind your wrists, truss you up, and have you as I like," he answered frankly, and Amoretta was so astonished that she reflexively covered her cheeks with her hands. She felt lightheaded and her face was so hot she thought she might actually be feverish.

He didn't appear to be paying much attention to her reaction, as he was still busy patiently removing mysterious and altogether alarming items from the drawer. Besides the rope, out came a black scarf with the dull sheen of silk, a couple of plain handkerchiefs, a pair of very formidable looking leather braces with chrome hardware, and a strange looking pair of scissors that were bent in the middle.

With each item he laid nonchalantly out on the bed, her eyes got wider and wider. It other circumstances it would have certainly been comical, and he wasn't entirely beyond seeing the humor in the situation. It was certainly amusing to see the funny little vixen so totally beside herself, tangled up in a strange mixture of dread and amazement.

"You had all that stuff in your bedside table," she said blankly, then she backtracked and reorganized her words. "Why did you have all that stuff in your bedside table?"

" _I wonder,"_  he said. His reply was as dry and cool as the air in Patagonia, slow and sluggish, so Amoretta had an ample amount of time to reflect on just how silly her question had been. "You must realize that you are  _far_  beyond writing lines of poetry. You owe me considerably more recompense than that," he finished, and the way he said it gave her a  _chill_.

She did not need even a single fluid ounce of genius to work out why he had such a specific assortment of items so near to their bed.

"Are you really going to do that, I mean,  _are_   _you_   _going_   _to_   _do_   _all of that_ , to  _me_?" Amoretta asked, half whisper, half squeak. It wasn't really clear whether she was excited about the prospect or terrified by it. It was probably a little of both. She was clearly also at war with herself over whether to believe or disbelieve his intentions, although the mounting physical evidence did seem to indicate that she ought to take him seriously.

Grabiner enjoyed the air she exuded at that moment: something of the fear of a hunted animal married with the acute interest of a habitual rule-breaker who has a dangerous fondness for authority. She was both  _anxious_ and  _keen_ , a little frantic and certainly delighted.

He moved to patiently return her hands to her lap and said, "Yes. That is exactly what I'm going to do. Do you have any objections?" he asked with mild amusement.

She was still stunned, but she managed to shake her head.

"No, I," she ducked her head again as she shyly said, "I'm willing."

"Yes," he said simply. "I know you are." Then he laughed: a slight, faint chuckle. When she looked up at him she saw that his eyes were half-lidded and intent. His mouth was turned up at the corner slightly. He looked as if he was enjoying himself immensely, but only allowing a little of his pleasure to show through his carefully focused control. But then suddenly he was very serious, his mouth a thin line. "I'm about to put you in a very compromising position. You will be functionally helpless until I release you," he said evenly, and there was no levity in his voice, none of the teasing superiority. "You  _must_  tell me if it becomes too much for you. I will be watching you very closely, but you are the best judge of what you can and cannot take. I have no wish to hurt you, nor do I really wish to terrify you. If you become frightened, we  _can and_   _will_ stop. Whatever happens, you will not disappoint me. Do you understand?"

"I understand," she answered quietly, her eyes downcast.

Then he put his hand under her chin to turn her face up so she was forced to look at him.

"This is not about what you can endure. You have nothing to prove to me. We will not proceed unless I am certain that you understand this," he said.

Amoretta swallowed once and then nodded.

"I understand," she repeated herself shyly, then nodded again, as if gathering up her courage. "I do honestly understand, Hieronymous. I trust you. I promise that I'll tell you if it's too much."

After looking at her steadily for several seconds, he was apparently satisfied. He moved the odd looking scissors to the bedside table and then turned his attention toward her again.

He began with her hands. The heavy looking braces were apparently cuffs, judging from the fact that he pulled her hands into his lap one at a time to secure them, belting the leather restraints firmly in place.

"Are you comfortable?" he asked, giving one of the cuffs a brief tug. "They're meant to be secure. You shouldn't be able to slip out of them, but neither should they restrict your circulation, or put undue pressure on your wrists."

"I, I think they're all right," Amoretta stammered, still a little shy and uncertain.

_How long had all of that been in the bedside drawer?_

"I could bind you with magic, naturally," he was speaking idly as he clipped the two cuffs together with a carabiner, "And there are circumstances where that can be both useful and pleasurable," he said. "But there is something very arresting about real, actual,  _physical_ restraints. Then, there is the fact that the red looks good against your skin," he said, laying a length of the crimson rope over her thighs. The vivid color was very striking against her milky, opaline flesh, as striking as the slick, saturated rouge on her lips. "And now, every time I bind us together with that ribbon before sleep, you will think of this," he said, and the leading edge was back, this time a bit more pronounced. "You will remember this," he repeated, "And your heart will race, and you will wonder _if you ought to ask_  - " he said these last few words with uncertainty and needy emotion, mimicking a future Amoretta of his own imagination. Then the edge was back, the satisfied, confident superiority, as he whispered his answer so close to her ear that she could feel his warm breath and the feathery touch of his dark hair on her shoulder. " _You should ask_."

Amoretta was by now too keyed up to be able to answer him at all. Her heart was beating fast and she felt faint and flushed, almost drunk on a mixture of anticipation, dread, and fascination.

"Close your eyes," he said, and she did, biting at her lower lip again.

She sat very still as she felt him loop what must have been the scarf around her neck, dragging it slowly over one of her shoulders, and then the other.

Amoretta shivered.

"You're being unusually awful," Amoretta murmured, her cheeks deeply flushed.

"Then I must be entirely in character," he answered glibly as he at last drew the scarf over her eyes to tie the blindfold. "You must be  _absolutely_   _delighted_. After all, you can't get enough of awful people."

Then he pulled her wrists above her head and fastened them by means of the crimson rope to some point above her, so that she was pulled slightly upward. She was restrained, but not uncomfortable. The tension in the rope had pulled her arms slightly taut, but she could still sit easily on her feet. She might have comfortably wriggled her toes, but she was far too tense to do anything so flippant. Being blindfolded made her curiously sensitive to every slight sound as he shifted on the bed, every phantom sensation of warmth that might have been the precursor to the tactile presence of his hands.

When he kissed her it was unexpected. He had given her no warning, and although she had heard the shift of the mattress as he moved, she could not have predicted his intentions. She only felt the warmth of his breath on her lips and she gasped in surprise, drawing back slightly. He took advantage of her barely open mouth and kissed her slowly, one hand on her warm throat, his thumb playing over the blood in her jugular vein. Being kissed while she was blindfolded was nearly overwhelming. She curled her toes and whimpered into his mouth as she felt the hot drag of his tongue over hers. He had begun to stroke her throat, and his touch was light, but deliberate.

When he pulled away from her mouth she followed him forward, seeking to maintain the contact between them, her lips damp and slightly parted. He caught her chin with one hand and then she felt something brush gently across her bottom lip. Her tongue came tentatively out to meet this new experience and she tasted the dry salt of his thumb. As she ran her tongue over his thumb, slightly hesitant and curious, she heard his faint chuckle again and then he pushed the pad of his thumb between her lips, gently bearing down on her lower teeth.

The unexpected movement forced another soft, inadvertent sound out of Amoretta. He rubbed his thumb thoughtfully against her teeth, and across her small, warm tongue, his fingers spread along the line of her jaw. Then she felt his other hand on the back of her neck, sliding up to tangle in her hair. As he dug his fingertips agonizingly against her scalp, she heard and felt the mattress shift again.

She felt the barest whisper of his lips against her neck before there was suddenly the heat of his open mouth. He pulled against the tender flesh just above her collarbone, enjoying the fact that she drew in her breath sharply around his thumb. When she felt his teeth in a slow, painfully pleasurable bite, the sound Amoretta made wasn't quiet and soft and shy. She moaned against his thumb and the sound came out as a half-sob, as dark as unsweetened chocolate and just as intense. After the sound slid out of her, her tongue against his thumb became fluid and languid. Although hearing the noise she had made so shamelessly was embarrassing, she had lost her earlier hesitation. It had gone into the floor like her discarded pajama shirt.

"That was an astonishingly erotic sound," Grabiner murmured, his lips moving against her neck. He drew his thumb out of her mouth as he asked in a low voice, "Are you enjoying yourself?"

Amoretta's tongue had fruitlessly chased after his thumb as he had drawn it out of her mouth. As he spoke to her he saw her cheeks flush at the edges of the blindfold. She pressed her teeth against her lower lip again and quietly admitted, "Yes."

It was somehow even more embarrassing because she knew he was still fully clothed and she was only wearing an ephemeral pair of panties and some mismatched socks.

Her hesitant admission was enough to make him kiss her again, leaning down and tilting her head back fully against his open palm. This time he wasn't quite so patient and he kissed her hungrily, as if he were desperate for some secret she had hidden under her tongue. She was very pliable now, warm and liquid, and she sucked at his tongue. It was a kiss that left them both considerably warmer than before, although Grabiner certainly had the advantage of her. As he pulled away he looked at her, flushed and rosy, her hot mouth slightly open. She was panting.

"Good," he said.

He ran two fingers from the hollow of her throat down the line of her sternum, feeling the cool, powdery softness of her skin, and then over the slight curve of her stomach, spreading his fingers out as he palmed the yielding flesh of her belly.

She squirmed in place, pulling a little at the cuffs.

"Hieronymous, that tickles," she said, and her voice was whispery and pitched higher than usual, so different from the low sound she had made when he had set his teeth against the triangle of her neck.

"Really?" he asked blandly, as if he wasn't particularly interested, then his hand descended lower, past her navel and at last came to rest over the jaunty bone of her hip. He pressed his thumb hard against this bone very briefly and was rewarded by another whimper.

At last his own patience began to wear a little thin.

"Come here," he said quietly, and looping one arm around her waist and sliding the other one under her bottom, he pulled her onto his lap as he moved underneath her.

The sudden shift in positions was arresting to Amoretta, although he handled her carefully, so she was not pulled rudely against her restrained wrists. His lap was warm, and the feeling of his trousers under her bare thighs was almost enough to make her shiver on its own, but the presence of his erection, hard and hot and entirely unmistakable underneath the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs made her press her teeth against her lower lip hard, whimpering. She could feel the hard metal of his trouser buttons underneath her, between her flesh and his flesh, and she squirmed a little, relishing the feeling.

He had one of his hands on her back and the other one splayed against the subtle roundness of her rear. As she squirmed, he dug his fingers into her bottom.

Reeling from the sensation of his completely unashamed groping, Amoretta sought to close the space that remained between them, pressing her knees against either side of his rib cage as he gratefully pulled her forward. Then without invitation or direction, she crossed her ankles behind his back and squeezed him hard.

This pushed her hard against his lap and his breath hissed out between his teeth. He pulled her closer then, urging her cling to him more tightly, and she clung like a little octopus, her ankles locked behind him, one of her heels digging slightly into his back. He pushed his tongue into her unresisting mouth, tasting her anticipation and desperation as he pressed his fingertips against her back. She was squirming slowly even as he kissed her. He slid his hand under her panties briefly, and raked his fingers across the warm, round flesh of her rear again, enjoying the feeling of her grinding against him through his trousers, although the restraint he had to exercise in this position was nearly unbearable.

He pinched her bottom and she squeaked.

"That's what you get, you awful little tease," he said with amusement, although his voice was low and a little thick.

"I'm not trying to tease you," Amoretta answered breathlessly.

She did have a point. She was tied up and blindfolded and sitting in his lap. Beyond that, she was clearly  _very willing to do whatever it was he wanted_.

He drew his roaming hand out of her panties and slid his other hand underneath her, cupping the soft, tender skin between her thighs through the slippery fabric. Her weight pressed the back of his hand against the buttons and more substantial fabric of his trousers. He grunted as her wriggling pushed his knuckles against his confined penis. When she moved against him, she pressed him against himself. He flexed his fingers against the slick satin of her panties experimentally, as if he would gather a warm, trembling handful of her, and was rewarded with another breathless whimper.

"No," he noted almost absently, "I suppose you're not."

He slid his hand out from between them, and she again came into very close contact with him. He leaned forward to bite her again in a different spot, enjoying the feeling of her skin under his tongue as he pulled just hard enough to leave a raspberry red mark. Amoretta trembled as she felt his thumb casually over her right nipple, but then she felt the brush of his hair against her chest as he ducked his head and she moaned again most embarrassingly as he mouthed her areola, nipping at her playfully, not hard, but  _just_   _hard_   _enough_.

"I feel like I could consume you right now," he said, teeth against her breastbone. "Completely."

He did not expect a reply to this statement, but he got one, breathless and shaky.

"I'd let you," she confessed helplessly.

"And so ends the very sad tale of the silly, sweet, trusting little ninny who was eaten like a Sunday pudding," he chuckled into her skin and the sound was low and rich.

He pulled her close to kiss her again, as if he would devour her very words, no matter how she decided to reply, this time pulling her tongue into his mouth. Under the blindfold, Amoretta's eyelids fluttered. He tasted of the tangy animal sweat of her body, of the salt and sweetness of her own skin. While he held her tongue captive, he was very delicately running one of his thumbs around the edge of a pert, flushed nipple. She moaned again as he kissed her, her knees loosening around him as she went slightly limp from his pointed attention. He slid one hand from the curve of her thigh along the length of her leg, briefly cuffing the bones of her ankle with his fingers before caressing her small, concave foot. He could feel each of her toes, like cool little pearls, inside the everyday softness of her familiar sock.

Amoretta was only half aware as she felt him easing her off of his lap and back onto the mattress.

"Are you all right?" he asked her and somehow she managed to answer that she was.

She was still limp, dangling from the restraints, as she heard him shift. There was the sound of a great deal of fabric rustling, although what this signified she could not be certain. He might have been undressing, but he might have been preparing some new, unknown,  _delightfully awful_  terror for her pleasure. Her senses sharpened up again as she heard him shifting around. The mattress creaked loudly and suddenly she felt the tension in her arms ease slightly and realized that he that loosened the rope from whatever it was he had attached it to.

Was he ready to let her loose? Her intense curiosity was tinged by a faint sense of disappointment. She was not really ready to be untied. But then after her hands had been lowered about to the level of her stomach, the rope became taut again and she realized that he had not intended to untie her after all.

She felt his hand under her chin, his first touch since he had eased her back onto the bed. He ran his thumb slowly over her lower lip and her tongue slipped out to taste it. Then she felt his other hand behind her head, tangling briefly in her hair, and the hand under her chin slid down her neck to rest against her chest. He pulled her close him him again, and as he wrapped his arm around her she realized that his arms were now bare.

She didn't have much time to process this information because he had almost immediately pressed her cheek against his naked chest, one arm around her to support her, since he had pulled her completely off balance. With his other hand he gathered up the great mass of her hair and pushed it behind her back, catching and holding most of it with the hand he braced her with.

And then he was easing her down, past his navel where she encountered some unexpected stickiness, guiding her head with a slow, patient hand.

She caught the damp, musky scent of him before anything else. Her heart was beating rapidly, but she was fully relaxed in his arms, limp as he supported her weight. The muscles of his forearm were tense against her back, and then she awkwardly bumped into him with her mouth. She licked her lips unconsciously, because whatever she had encountered had been a little wet and viscous. By now she was faintly desperate to have at least  _a_   _little_  of him and as she curled her toes she moved forward again, her small red tongue out. He guided her down and closed his eyes as he felt her hot little mouth close around the head of his penis.

Her tongue was almost immediately active, slipping and sliding across this very intimate skin. He tasted of salt and a little of bitterness, parts of him warm and bunched and dry until her tongue came upon them. It was a little difficult to manage since she could not catch after him with her hands and instead had to chase after him only with her mouth.

"Good girl," Grabiner said, and the words were half-groan because his efforts to teach her patience had resulted in her being quite abandoned. She had lost herself in the feeling and the touching and the movement. It was very wet and sticky and liquid and she was not particularly focused in her attentions, although she was unquestionably  _devoted_.

It was almost impossibly pleasurable to watch her like this, her hands bound in front of her by the scarlet rope and the dull black cuffs, her mass of dark, curly hair swept over one shoulder and gathered behind her neck. The scarf he had tied over eyes had slipped a little, but even under the blindfold her eyes were still closed, as if they could never be half as curious as  _her mouth_ was. There was a faint but very becoming blush on her cheeks and elbows, there was the rosiness of her nipples, the light marks he'd made on her himself with his mouth and fingers, and of course, the redness of her parted lips and the pink slip of her ready tongue.

Her tongue flicked over his flushed, taut skin ardently, and he could watch her move as she did, pulling a little against her bound wrists, squirming slightly in place. She had begun to make small sounds of pleasure and longing as she ran her tongue over him. She was somehow both faint and urgent at the same time. When she drew back it was only momentarily, a slender line of saliva still connecting her mouth tenuously but arrestingly to the sanguine red of his penis.

Then she had moved forward again, rubbing her cheek against soft velvety skin of the shaft of his penis as she let out a low, soft, but  _intense_  sound of desire.

When he felt her warm, agile little tongue on his testicles he groaned again, cupping the top of her head and splaying his fingers in her hair.

"You dreadful little minx," he complained, while not really complaining at all. His voice was low and strained from his effort to retain control over himself. "You certainly are a quick study at this."

She made a hazy, unintelligible sound into his lap that he could not begin to understand, but he had a fair idea of what she was likely trying to say.

"A good teacher can only account for so much," his pitch dropped considerably on his final word, because she had taken him very deeply into her mouth, her tongue sliding down the backside.

It was very difficult for him to justify disengaging with her at that moment. What she was doing felt incredibly pleasant, if slightly  _agonizing_ , and she presented a very compelling portrait while she was doing it. Besides, she appeared to be very much enjoying herself, her body swaying slightly as she nibbled and rubbed and mouthed him. He did enjoy letting her have her way, at least for a little while.

But.

Patience ought to be properly rewarded.

And he had exercised a nearly mind-numbing amount of patience already. Although primarily reactive by nature in the bedroom, Amoretta was astonishingly responsive and willing. In addition, he was very susceptible to her funny, unaffected charms. Whenever she asked for something, he felt an overwhelming desire to give it to her. It was very challenging to deny her even when he had set himself up to do just that, to please himself a little, to have her at his beck and call. But then, she was always at his beck and call anyway. Inevitably she would do whatever he asked of her. In the end, what he wanted most was to give her exactly what she wanted.

Which was what he was currently engaged in doing.

Although he lamented pulling her off of him, he did, and her disappointment was petulant and palpable.

"Don't go away," she begged, pushing her lower lip out. "I like being close to you."

"Just be patient a little longer," he grunted. "You and I are going to be  _very_   _close_."

He heard her draw in her breath in surprise and he leaned forward to kiss her sticky mouth. Then he took a moment to straighten the blindfold, which had gotten quite disheveled during her previous enthusiastic abandonment, and very carefully wiped her face, because she had gotten herself very messy.

The kiss was unexpected, and the feeling of the linen handkerchief on her face made her heart skip as she reveled in the feeling of him touching her, reveled in the feeling of his close, intimate care. She curled her toes.

Once he determined she was clean and comfortable, Grabiner again caught the end of the red rope, pulling her arms over her head so her wrists were bound above her. He bound her wrists so high that she was obliged to rise slightly on her knees. She pressed her teeth against her lower lip because the anticipation was enough to make her dizzy.

Then she heard the mattress shift again and felt the warmth of his body behind her. He gathered up her hair again and flipped it over her shoulder, so it spilled in front of her. All at once she felt the firm length of his penis pressed against the small of her back and she whimpered, spreading her knees a little, the restraint pulling against her wrists and compelling her to arch her back.

And then he had slipped his thumbs under the band of her frothy panties and had at last pulled them off of her, dropping them with finality to the floor.

He ran his hand along the line of her spine and she whimpered again.

"Hieronymous,  _please_ ," Amoretta let the sound out as half moan, half mewling whimper.

She was clearly at her limit. He would not have volunteered the information, but he was nearly at his. He was burning up with the desire to be completely inside of her while she moaned and whimpered and clung to him, to watch her move with his movement, to grasp the sharp bones of her hips as her hair bounced and she panted.

"All right," he said and endeavored to sound level and uninterested. "I suppose you've been patient enough."

Amoretta felt him slip one of his hands between her legs from behind, teasing and fondling the delicate folds of skin there. Her labia was already flush with blood.

She was a strange little creature, and as he caressed her, searching for one of the slightly distributed bundles of nerves that would make her wail and sob if agitated properly, he wondered at the supreme oddity of it all. She had not come with an instruction manual, after all, and his previous experience with women was only tangentially useful for bringing her to orgasm. Although he had previously performed a very detailed anatomical diagnostic on her, what he had discovered had not been simple or easy to ascribe. Outside of a basic adherence to the exterior physical anatomy of a regular human girl in the form of very slight breasts and the presence of what appeared to be a labia majora, she was otherwise quite uncanny. She was not female, certainly, but neither was she male, and she while she might have been something somewhere in between the two, she was not like a jigsaw puzzle where some of the pieces had been simply exchanged for related pieces of the opposite number. She was something strange and different and as far as he could ascertain, entirely unique. She was her own thing: unusual, warm, lovely, and somehow impossibly appealing. What he had learned about her body, he had learned through experimentation and her willing cooperation. Pleasuring her was not really a straightforward operation, although when one succeeded, it was certainly worth the trouble. It was such an unusual skill that he might have put it on his curriculum vitae, if such things had mattered to him. After all, as unique as it was, their situation was not entirely out of line with the regular experiences of a wizard, particularly one who had intimate dealings with the Other.

When he had first suggested that she was not biologically female, and in fact, likely not really human at all, she had met him with tears and high order distress, worrying that they would no longer be able to be together, based purely on physical incompatibility.

As he had intimated at the time,  _they_   _had_   _worked_   _things_   _out_.

He heard her draw in her breath and the corner of his mouth turned up in a reflexive smile. He had her now, and he would continue to have her: dozens of times, hundreds of times, a thousand times even. It would never be enough. He would never have enough of her. He pulled his fingers across her warm, pebbly skin and then withdrew his hand, giving her bottom a fond squeeze before letting go of her again.

Amoretta felt his hand flat against her stomach again, pulling her slightly backward, her knees splaying against the sheets. Both of his hands were over her hip bones as he lifted her and tilted her hips slightly forward. Then he had settled her on her knees again, her back delicately arched.

"What is it that you want?" he asked her, his own voice husky and dark with his efforts to remain controlled.

Her answer was immediate and unequivocal.

" _You_ ," she panted.

"Is that so?" he asked almost lazily.

"Yes," she whimpered, and her little tongue was out.

"Really?" he asked again idly, his thumb in the little dimple over her tailbone.

"Yes,  _please_ ," she begged. "I want you. I want you  _so_   _much_."

"Always so greedy," he said, clicking his tongue.

She could feel the damp heat of his penis pressed against the warm pucker of her most delicate flesh, and it was enough to stop her breath as he very slowly pushed into her, holding onto the bite of her hip with one hand as he guided himself in.

Amoretta let out a long, liquid mewl as she felt him inching slowly inside her. Her knees began to feel weak and she might have collapsed forward against her restraints if he hadn't been helping to support her. As it was she pulled at them, and the tension in her arms added to the tense, inexorable pleasure of him sliding inside of her.

Agonizingly, he stopped, and she heard him ask with concern, "Have I hurt you?"

"No," Amoretta whimpered out, "No, no, please,  _please_.  _Please_   _don't_   _stop_."

Having verified that her intense reaction had not been a result of pain, he moved again and she trembled with dizzy enjoyment, savoring every slow second of the experience, her head lolling back on her neck.

At last he was fully inside her, and his hands slid up from her hip bones to her shoulders and he braced her as he leaned forward, bringing their bodies fully together. He let his mouth come to rest over the pale triangle of her neck and shoulder. He set his teeth against her skin, but he did not bite her, simply sat very still, enjoying the taste of her skin on his tongue and the feeling of her body gripping him tightly. When he pulled his mouth away from her skin, it was only to speak directly into her ear.

"You belong to me," he said very deliberately. "Entirely. All of you. Every inch. Not because I took something from you, but because you gave yourself to me. You belong  _with_ me." He dropped his mouth to her shoulder again and murmured an indistinct "I love you," into her skin.

Then he began to move, and his hand was between her legs again, sliding through the folds of her soft skin, catching at the places that made her tremble, coaxing the sound out of her.

Amoretta was feverishly hot, burning up and overwhelmed by the feeling of him inside her. Even without the use of her eyes, it was almost more than she could bear - the muffled squeak of the bed and the whisper of the rope around the carabiner that bound her cuffed hands together as they moved, the feeling of sweat beading in the small of her back and slipping down her skin. The pressure and the friction from his weight behind her were enough to make her sob out his name, even without the persistent, familiar brush of his fingertips against her secret skin, and the feeling of his hot breath against the back of her head. She was already very close when she felt his mouth lightly against the back of her neck. His hand was under her chin, his thumb running over her lip when her orgasm rocked her, leaving her sobbing and moaning as she bucked against him. She hazily heard him groan as she clenched around him, a staggered line of staccato notes from her grasping, stroking body. He held her steady until she was quite limp and spent.

She was only vaguely aware of him as he quickened his pace, rocking her tightly against him, pulling her back and forth as he moved inside her. His powerful motion was nearly overwhelming because she felt so swelled and overstimulated, and she sobbed every time he drove them impossibly close together. He was quick and intense and unapologetic, entirely lost inside her. Then he let out a barely audible groan as she whimpered, and then they were both still.

They were still for several moments, and he held her body against his own, so her knobbly spine was flush against his chest. Then he carefully pulled out of her, still supporting her weight. She was so limp now that she might hurt herself if he left her restrained.

She felt him fidgeting with first the rope, and then the cuffs and at last she was free.

He gently laid her down on her side and lifted her head to tuck her pillow underneath it. She was still limp and generally unresponsive. He untied the blindfold and pulled it from her face, but she seemed as yet unwilling to open her eyes.

Amoretta felt him climb over her and then heard him rustling around in his bedside drawer.

"Open your mouth," he said.

She opened one eye to look at him and he snorted. He was crouched next to the bed with a blue ribboned box in his hands.

"I said open your mouth, not your eyes," he said.

Amoretta closed her eye and stuck her tongue out at him. He took this opportunity to pop something into her mouth. After a split second, she knew what it was.

"Chocolate," she said, opening her eyes at last.

"Yes, chocolate," he agreed, then put the box on the bedside table and crawled over her again.

He reclined behind her, lightly caressing her spine as she lay very still, letting the chocolate melt in her mouth. She still felt very weak, and she wasn't sure she could stand. It was very nice to lie still and be petted.

He leaned over her to gently kiss the back of her neck and repeated, "I love you." After a moment he added, "You did very well."

"I passed?" she asked vaguely. It wasn't bittersweet chocolate he had put into her mouth, but something richer and more to her taste. There was the flavor of orange in it, and a faint hint of red pepper. It was like warm butter on her tongue.

He snorted. "It wasn't a test," he answered pointedly, still running his fingertips idly over her back.

"But if it  _was_ a test," she prompted, and he could hear the smile begin to curl up in her voice.

"No matter how wild you may be for a letter grade, I am never going to  _test you_  in the bedroom," Grabiner said deliberately. "You really are an egregious little monster."

"The only reason you're not keen on testing me is because there's no point," Amoretta noted idly, stretching her short legs out and wriggling her toes. "You know I'd just make 'Superlative' in every category, except where I did so well that you'd have to make up a ranking even better than that."

"You'd certainly make superlative in the ego category," he said dryly and she giggled. "Lie still," he suggested and she tensed, slightly wide-eyed, uncertain of what else he might have planned. She felt completely exhausted. She heard him let out a slightly exasperated sigh. "Please do be calm. I'm only going to see to your minor abrasions and put a regenerative spell on you. I'm not really as sinister as you imagine me to be, nor am I quite so fictitiously virile."

She was still as she listened to his quiet casting and felt him dabbing at her skin with his fingers.

"I am sorry if I hurt you," he said briefly. "I bit you reasonably hard, once or twice."

"That's probably my favorite part," Amoretta admitted serenely. "You don't have to apologize for biting me. You did it on purpose, didn't you? It's not like it was an accident. May I have another piece of chocolate?" she asked sweetly and he grunted once in affirmation, leaning over her to pick another chocolate from the box and deposit it in her open mouth.

"It wasn't my intention to hurt you," he clarified, slightly exasperated

Amoretta closed her eyes in pleasure as she let it sit on her tongue.

"Oh, yes it was," she disagreed. " _A little_."

"Well, yes," he was forced to admit. "A little."

"Then you don't have anything to apologize for," she repeated. "You only hurt me a little, and I liked it." She paused briefly, considering the chocolate on her tongue. "These are the stupidly expensive ones, aren't they?" she asked, having reached a sublime, post-coital chocolate nirvana.

"They're Debauve & Gallais, if that's what you mean," he said. "They're not  _that_ expensive."

She turned her head slightly so she could see the line of his shoulder and said, "Four of those chocolates costs a sawbuck," she said. "Which means I just ate _a Grant's_  worth of chocolate. That is  _beyond bourgeois_." She giggled again and added, "It's a good thing that we don't have to pay rent for this place, otherwise I'm sure we'd have already been evicted because of your aristocratic taste in chocolate, and wine, and  _shoes_ , and  _hand_   _soap_. Is there anything you like that isn't ridiculously fancy and expensive?"

"Bourbon and  _you_ ,"he answered her without missing a beat. "You want another piece, don't you?" he asked, completely deadpan.

" _Of course I want another piece_ ," she confessed unashamedly, and he leaned over her again to retrieve the box.

"Here, you little glutton," he said, and gave her another piece before selecting one for himself.

"Am I to take it that you  _enjoyed yourself_  this evening?" he asked, sounding more than a little self-satisfied.

"I believe the colloquial expression would be 'you fucked my brains out,'" she answered, still thoroughly enjoying the chocolate. " _Yes, I enjoyed myself."_

"You can be surprisingly vulgar," Grabiner laughed, the free, unrestrained laugh that only emerged when he was entirely caught off guard. "What a wicked mouth you have," he observed, giving her a firm swat on the behind.

"Only you know just how wicked it is," she said with a rich, lazy smile.

"A monopoly I plan to keep firmly under my control," he answered.

"I hope this isn't the sort of punishment that you give to every student who misbehaves," Amoretta baited.

He leaned down to kiss the hollow of her throat. "No," he said, "Only to my special pet."

Now it was her turn to swell with considerable self-confidence. "I bet you've been fantasizing about this since February  _at least_ ," she said very smugly.

" _You've_  been fantasizing about it since October," he answered her flatly. "Or perhaps even before."

Amoretta flushed deeply and ducked her head down against the pillow, hiding her face. "Since before," she admitted in a very small voice. "Not with quite so many specifics, I guess. I mean, I obviously wasn't sure about all the hardware. You did fill in some puzzling blanks. But generally?" she made a slight, soft noise of distress. "Yes.  _Absolutely yes._ "

"Color me entirely unsurprised," he answered, laying a hand on her head. "I would apologize for embarrassing you, but I'm not particularly sorry," he said. "You're adorable when you're like this. Would that I had superhuman stamina and preternatural recovery," he lamented idly. "Besides," he reminded her, "I did warn you that when you push me,  _I will push you back_."

She made a small sound of agreement, then she was silent for a moment.

"It was really difficult being blindfolded," she confessed to the pillow.

"You didn't like it?" he asked, stroking her hair.

"No, I," she hesitated, "I did. But I could never be sure what you were going to do next. Since I couldn't see you, I had to listen instead, and every time you touched me it was like I got a  _jolt_ \- " She looked up as if suddenly overwhelmed by curiosity. "You weren't really jolting me, were you? With a spell or something? I mean I wouldn't put it past you - "

"I was  _not_ ," he cut in deliberately. "The only magic at work was your own febrile and overactive imagination. That's one of the things about being blindfolded. It can heighten your perceptions, and even produce phantom perceptions. It's not  _exactly_ like hallucination, but not entirely different from it either." His smugness returned, faint and yet impossible to ignore. "Being blindfolded also has a tendency to cut performance anxiety. Which is, coincidentally, why I blindfolded you. Well," he paused meaningfully. " _One_  of the reasons, at any rate. I have to admit," he added, letting his hand slip from her head to the curve of her hip, "You did present a number of very attractive portraits that I am not likely to forget soon."

"Well, I'm glad you had a good time," Amoretta answered with amusement, sticking her tongue out at him. "Although I do have to tell you, if you honestly meant that to  _discourage_ me from rule-breaking, then I'm afraid you failed completely. If this is  _really_ the sort of punishment you've been threatening me with for months now, I really should have been much worse, because then I might have gotten it sooner."

"I have learned," Grabiner said evenly, "That positive and negative incentives have absolutely no influence on your behavior at all. Therefore, I am not worried that you will somehow become more delinquent than you already are," he fixed her with a half-lidded stare, "As if that were  _at all possible_. No," he said with a dismissive wave. "I expect you to remain exactly as dreadfully impertinent and unruly as you are now. Although sometimes inconvenient, there is one notable silver lining to all your bad behavior: I never have to feel the slightest bit guilty about tying you to a bedframe," he said dryly. Then he shrugged eloquently. "In this circumstance, you will find that our interests dovetail nicely. I  _thoroughly enjoy_  punishing you. Don't think I labor under any delusions that I will ever correct your obscenely bad behavior. Honestly, I don't want to. I  _prefer_ you as a delinquent."

"Then even if I have a taste for authority, you've  _got_ to admit that you've got a taste for reform school," she suggested, looking very self-satisfied.

"Yes," he agreed with a snort, giving her bottom a squeeze, "I must. I have a taste for girls from Miss Cupcake's Reformatory for Mildly Awful Girl Scouts."

And at that, Amoretta dissolved into an impossible confusion of giggles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sex in this chapter is all safe and responsible. BDSM sex is not the kind of sex that you can have safely ‘at the drop of a hat.’ It requires knowledge and planning and the proper equipment, and I hope that I have managed to get that across (in a sexy way). Fictional sex doesn’t have to be dangerous and/or impossible to be arousing. Being responsible and safe doesn’t make sex boring. I think the truth is that most people who are interested in BDSM experiences have so little knowledge of actual practices that they don’t have any idea what the regular safeguards are. Where most dabblers run into trouble is their lack of information, and a tendency to disregard proper forms because "it's not that serious." But safeguards are there for a reason.
> 
> People can be embarrassed about what they want, and fiction is laden with strange, inaccurate depictions of D/s and BDSM. There seems to be a veritable catalogue of misinformation about BDSM, and most people are very keen to disavow any knowledge of it at all, as loudly as possible, as if their ignorance was something to be boastful about: "Well, I certainly don't know anything about that."
> 
> There is nothing inherently wrong with Dominance and submission, bondage, discipline, and sadomasochism, so long as both parties are consenting. There is nothing disgusting, hurtful, or obscene about it. It can be just as healthy and natural a part of a caring relationship as more ordinary forms of sexual expression. It’s not a way to express the brokenness of your soul. It is not a thing that needs to be fixed or healed. It’s just how some people are. It’s just what some people want.
> 
> The scene described in Interstadial I is a brief and light experience, in terms of BDSM. It lasts about a half hour. This is because it is Amoretta’s first experience, and it therefore must be relatively mild. That is not to say her experiences will always be so mild, but it is always best to start at the very beginning (because it’s a very good place to start). Throwing an inexperienced person headfirst into a difficult, complex situation is a good way to possibly injure a partner or at the very least have a catastrophic failure of an encounter. So to anyone who read this and thought ‘man, that was the lamest, most vanilla BDSM sex ever. I’ve read more hardcore stuff on the back of a cereal box,’ please understand that it was mild on purpose. When one begins, it is best to begin with training wheels.
> 
> Also, please, please, please be aware that you should never attempt even a partial suspension unless you have the proper equipment, and the requisite experience because it is very easy to cause permanent nerve damage if the wrists are bound improperly. Additionally, human beings are heavy, and you need to have a very specific setup to suspend them safely. If you don’t have that, what you’re likely to do is bring the ceiling down and possibly break some bones in a fall.
> 
> True fact: when you write sex to be porn, you write it differently than when you write sex to be literature. This is the former variety, rather than the latter. There’s nothing wrong with writing sex either way, they just have different intentions. If the prose in this story is not as elegant as you are used to, if the word choice is not as varied, if the metaphors do not abound, then it is because I had other intentions than to distract you with purple prose and weird euphemisms.
> 
> As a side note, Debauve & Gallais chocolates are not ordinarily quite as expensive as Amoretta makes them out to be, unless one buys them in the fancy leather box that's meant to look like a book, but they are certainly a luxury.


	9. Seven: These Wounds Won't Seem to Heal

It was a little after breakfast the next morning when Revane had another caller, one whose recent absence had been duly noted by those who had become accustomed to her near omnipresence, even in the closed world of the little seaside cottage. Petunia Potsdam blustered in wearing knee boots and sunglasses, with a gay scarf tied around her hair, looking for all the world like a glamorous fashion plate from the early nineteen sixties. She had come, she said, from Las Vegas. She had been out to see Noir Suzerain on the circuit, and had returned with presents and news that he would be in to visit the newlyweds at their current address some time near the end of the present month or the beginning of the next. Amoretta was thrilled at the news, and at the housewarming gift her father had sent, care of Petunia Potsdam. Grabiner was less overjoyed, but recognized that no matter how he felt about seeing the girl's father again, he needed to have a long discussion with Mr. Suzerain regarding Amoretta's past and the possibilities of the uncertain future.

The headmistress was all twinkling rhinestone smiles, because she had apparently enjoyed her short vacation greatly. She asked how the chickens were getting on, was pleased to hear they were doing well, and promised a rooster as soon as she could get a suitable one. When Amoretta burst out with the news about William's possible apprenticeship, she took it with droll amusement, and teased Grabiner a little over his new protege.

Grabiner frowned and said, "For the moment, he's simply here so he can get a measure of things. Time and Mr. Danson's mettle will tell if he is really meant to stay."

And then there was the matter of their most recent houseguest, the blackbird who had not yet made her morning appearance. Amoretta had thought it best to let Raven sleep in her first morning at Revane. She had been in bad shape the evening previous, wet to the bone, exhausted, and threatening a case of sniffles. After Amoretta had granted the girl hospitality, and seen that she had a bath, a cup of broth, and a basic regenerative spell, the dark-haired girl had fallen asleep like she'd pricked her finger on a spinning wheel.

The headmistress was interested in this bit of intelligence.

"Ah, I see," she said. "So this is where she got to. I do need to have a word with her before I leave, so let's hope she gets up before lunchtime," the headmistress said with a chortle.

"I'm sure she'll be up before too long," Amoretta answered with a nod. "She was in bed before ten, so I can't imagine she'll sleep past mid-morning."

The headmistress found this information satisfactory, and gave Amoretta a fond smile. Then Petunia Potsdam glanced at Grabiner sidelong and said diplomatically, "Rail tells me you had another minor incident while I was away."

Grabiner shrugged once, as if the matter no longer concerned him greatly and said, "What happened, happened. It has been dealt with."

"Of course, of course," the headmistress agreed pleasantly, then turned her attention to Amoretta briefly. "Now, my lovely little chickadee, I really do need to discuss some things about the fall term with your contrary husband, things that it would not do for a student to overhear, so I am afraid I must borrow him for a bit. I hope you don't mind. In exchange for you letting me have him temporarily, I've brought a special guest with me today. There's a surprise waiting for you out in your garden," the headmistress said mysteriously. "Now run along and don't peek through the window and spoil all the fun. You should really come upon him in his natural element."

Amoretta, deeply intrigued, nodded, giving Grabiner a fond pat on the arm before heading out the front door.

"Borrow him for as long as you need, headmistress," she said with a laugh. "After all, I've got dibs on him for a long, long time."

* * *

Amoretta wasn't sure what to expect or who she might discover out among the varied blooms of her chimerical garden. Grabiner had allowed the headmistress in himself, along with her mysterious guest. Amoretta didn't think it was likely to be a rooster, given what the headmistress had said in the house, but it realistically might have been any other sort of creature Petunia Potsdam thought it appropriate to have in the general environs of a cottage, like a goat, some pigeons, a tabby cat, or a garden snake.

If Amoretta worried she might have had to hunt a bit to find her special guest, she was mistaken. She had barely pulled the front door closed behind her and tripped down the broad stone steps into the court when her breath was caught in her chest the same way it had been when she first saw the Running Artemis on display in a St. Louis museum.

In one pale, quiet moment, she saw him.

His dark, powerfully muscled body was as jetty as obsidian, with a sheen like oily velvet. The animal was at least fifteen hands high with feathered feet and a slightly woolly mane that looked almost crimped, tied here and there with red ribbons. He had an artfully arched neck with chiseled muscles and small ears like broad blades of grass, ears that flicked sideways toward her when he caught the sound of her presence. Then he turned his beautiful Spanish head and Amoretta could see the horn that shone like polished bone in the center of his forehead.

There was a unicorn in her garden.

It was a moment that Amoretta had been wishing and hoping for from the time her childish little fingers had first clumsily turned the page in a picture book and beheld that equine beast who steals the hearts of little girls everywhere. She had waited up many a night during her girlhood, sitting patiently and silently in a dark garden wet with dew heavy grass hoping to catch sight of this creature of dreams and vision.

With her hands drawn to her chest, Amoretta took a hesitant step toward the animal, whose large liquid eyes were fixed intently on her. Slowly and carefully, Amoretta made her way closer and closer to the majestic creature, who looked so perfect it was as if he were greek statuary sprung to life. She was afraid to move too quickly, afraid she would startle the unicorn and bring an end to this beautiful dream.

But somehow, the unicorn did not withdraw at her approach, but remained stationary, watching her closely.

At last, Amoretta tentatively raised one hand to brush her fingertips across his broad velvety nose, but at that, the unicorn's ears flicked back, and Amoretta was startled by a very testy voice.

"Don't you have any manners at all?" the voice demanded. "Please keep your hands to yourself. How would you like it if people went around touching you without invitation or consent? You'd call that harassment, wouldn't you? Humph."

The unicorn snorted and took two steps backward, and Amoretta was left standing with her hand in the air and her mouth hanging open. After a moment, the familiar red cardinal landed companionably on her shoulder and began to sing most beautifully, and she felt like a piece of lawn statuary.

"I  _am_ sorry," Amoretta stammered without thinking, "I didn't mean to be impolite - " And then all at once her mind connected up the varied dots and it burst out of her. "You can talk!" she cried with excitement.

"Oh, now I can see why you're considered such a star pupil," the unicorn remarked dryly, "Nothing at all gets by you."

"I didn't know that unicorns could talk," Amoretta said excitedly, dancing a little in place.

"Obviously," the unicorn said, rolling his eyes very eloquently. "Otherwise I'm sure I'd think you were quite unhinged, instead of just being simple. But then, it's not as if that's a condition unique to you. Any woman under the age of thirty who sees me is suddenly starstruck and tonguetied. I suppose it's because I'm so astonishingly good-looking."

"You are very handsome, Mr. Unicorn," Amoretta agreed, finally withdrawing her hand from the empty air to clasp in front of her winsomely. The cardinal on her shoulder chirped his agreement.

"Yes, I know," the unicorn said nonchalantly. When he spoke, he didn't really  _speak_. It wasn't as if his lips moved and the sound came out from between them, like a modern day Mr. Ed with a mouth full of peanut butter. Instead, the sound was born from somewhere around his forehead, coming into being like music from a record spun up by magic.

"I'm really very sorry that I tried to touch you without asking permission. I realize now that it was awfully impolite of me, no matter how surprised I was to see you," Amoretta attempted to apologize more properly, her cheeks flushing.

"Being that I am gracious and big-hearted, you're forgiven," the unicorn announced off-hand, flicking his tail briefly over his back to punctuate his statement. "Honestly, I did set you up, to see exactly how you'd react. I wanted to see what Nene has been so interested in recently."

"Nene?" Amoretta asked in confusion.

"Petunia Isadore Potsdam, the Ribbon Rainbow, archwitch, current inheritor of Pentachromatic magic, and the headmistress of Iris Academy," the unicorn said with a snort. "My partner and mistress.  _I_ can call her Nene, because I've known her for ever-so-long, but I don't think  _you_ ought to be so familiar."

"Of course not," Amoretta agreed hastily, lest she seem rude. "I usually call her 'headmistress,' honestly," she volunteered. "My name's Amoretta, by the way, Marianne Amoretta, but everyone just calls me Amoretta. Marianne is the name of my grandma, and they couldn't have two of us in the house because that would have been awfully confusing, even if I was just a little baby. So I've always been called Amoretta. I was born a Suzerain but as of late I have become a Grabiner," she said with a cute little bow.

"Yes, I am aware of who you are," the unicorn said dismissively, with a toss of his head. "And of who you married. I was the one who ended up having to deliver the mail the day of your unexpected nuptials."

"Are you really?" Amoretta asked with interest, because the idea of a unicorn mail-carrier was absolutely delightful to her. She was just imagining him in a little blue cap when it dawned upon her. "Oh, I see now. You're the headmistress's - "

"Manus," the unicorn cut in deliberately, snorting. "Even if you are a silly little wildseed girl, I couldn't abide being called a familiar by you. It's  _so_ degrading."

"I was going to say 'manus,'" Amoretta volunteered with a brief smile. "I do have some manners and sense, even if Hieronymous says I don't tend to exhibit either commonly enough for them to be considered among my virtues."

"Yes, well," the unicorn said after an eyeroll, "Your husband is a disagreeable sort of person, so I'm not at all surprised that he said such a thing."

"You don't like him?" Amoretta asked with amusement.

"I didn't say that," the unicorn disagreed. "I simply said he is disagreeable, which is certainly true. I am also disagreeable. This is not debatable, but quite self-evident. People always assume that disagreeable people disagree with one another the most, but actually, the truth is that disagreeable people often have the sense to leave one another alone. I think he's really quite tolerable."

"That  _is_ high praise," Amoretta giggled.

"You are impudent," the unicorn noted. "But then, impudence does have its own appeal. I begin to ken why he chose to marry you. He was obviously tired of living a quiet, sensible, useful life and so decided to inject a little under five feet of pure derangement into the equation. Of course,  _I_  know why he really chose to marry you. You were in the wrong place at the right time. That is the way these things often happen."

"I was in the wrong place at the right time," Amoretta repeated absently. "I guess that sounds like a very short summary of my entire life."

"Given what I know about you, I thought it might," the unicorn said, sounding pleased with himself. "In any case, my name is Mael. Although this is our first meeting, I have known you for some time, although not formally, naturally."

"I was wondering about that," Amoretta said. "I guess I've known the headmistress had a manus for a while now, but I had never seen one - that is," she corrected herself, "I had never seen  _you_. I suppose Kavus doesn't make himself commonly known to students either."

"I try to avoid students if at all possible," Mael agreed with a very superior look. "Witchborn and wildseed alike tend to be very silly. I have a low tolerance for teenagers, except in very small doses. Can you imagine how hounded I would be if I just wandered around the campus openly? No, it simply can't be done. I'm just too incredibly gorgeous. The temptation would be too great and girls would soon be fighting over me. Therefore, I only move around either entirely concealed, or wearing a glamor. Otherwise I would always be  _beset_."

"I can see how that would be very inconvenient," Amoretta said sympathetically, doing her best to conceal a smile. "But even if you are very careful, surely some of the other students must know about you," Amoretta said. "But no rumors race around the campus about the headmistress's ridiculously handsome unicorn manus. Well," she paused thoughtfully, "None that I ever heard, anyway."

"That is because it is understood among the students I am forced to interact with that the information is not meant to be commonly circulated," Mael said self-importantly.

"Oh," Amoretta said, "Then it's like the old school building. Some people know, but they just don't talk about it."

"Particularly not to freshman," Mael said. "Teenagers are generally very silly, but freshman are usually the most silly of all, and the most likely to do something completely untenable, like uninvited fondling, or even attempting to crawl on one's back."

"I did say I was sorry," Amoretta reminded him. "And I'm afraid that I'm often very silly. Even sillier than most teenagers, or so I understand, based on the testimony of unbiased authorities."

Mael shifted briefly, and Amoretta got the strong impression that he had shrugged, although being a unicorn, he could not have done such a thing.

"I forgave you," he reminded her in turn. "And yes, I would say that you are uncommonly silly, given my limited observations of you. But Nene is interested in you, which means that we will be thrown together from time to time. In such a situation it is best to be on good terms, if that is at all possible. Fortunately for you, it is. I am resigned to a certain amount of silliness. I'd have to be, considering my mistress."

And Amoretta couldn't really argue with that.

* * *

While Amoretta was meeting unicorns in her garden, Petunia Potsdam and Hieronymous Grabiner were deep in conversation on the back terrace, wrapped up in half a dozen silencing and privacy spells. They were not, as one can imagine, discussing the particulars of the following autumn term.

"That is the most offensively stupid thing I have ever heard," Grabiner complained hotly. "Do you really expect me to believe that?"

"Believe it or not, as you please, Hieronymous," the headmistress said with a shrug. "I am only relating the information that I could gather from the man himself. I do admit that it is a somewhat strange story - "

" _Somewhat_  strange?" Grabiner repeated incredulously. "It's absolutely  _lunatic_." He pushed his hat back and ran his hand through his hair. "I admit that the girl is remarkable and peculiar. And I will grant that her father is a very strange person, and I expected to discover something unusual about her youth or the circumstances of her birth, but this is  _beyond ridiculous_  - "

The headmistress shook her head helplessly. "The circumstances of her birth," she said, lightly clicking her tongue. "Hieronymous, you know as well as I do that the girl wasn't born, at least not as the person we are currently acquainted with. She can't have been. She's a divine soul in a very unusual physical shell, one that I would venture to suggest is manufactured, or at the very least heavily altered. She has got to be a chimæra. There's no other explanation that fits the facts. I know it's an upsetting truth, but there's no point in hiding from it or skirting around it with vague euphemisms."

"You can't be certain, so please guard your accusations," Grabiner interjected passionately. "She is very unusual, I won't deny that, but we don't have enough information to determine definitively that she's a chimæra. You're just grasping at straws."

"Hieronymous, I know it's not easy to accept, but it is the only explanation that makes any sense, given the circumstances," Petunia Potsdam said gently. "I know that puts the both of you in a very uncomfortable position in regards to the five abominations - "

"She is  _not_ an abomination," Grabiner cut in fiercely.

"You know that I would never suggest such a thing," the headmistress said apologetically. "And I certainly don't think it now. Your wife is a very lovely girl who is kind and thoughtful and funny, who is quite as much a person as either you or I. But I know that you're not a stupid man. Nothing I've said about her nature comes as a surprise to you. You have already been thinking and brooding about all of this for some time, refusing to seek the counsel of anyone but yourself. I know you have the strange notion that if you can avoid admitting to the truth, then you can keep it from being so, but I am afraid that circumstances are unlikely to be altered as a result of your wishes, no matter how fervent they may be. It is true whether you admit to it or not. She is some sort of chimæra. You know that."

"I have found no evidence of seams anywhere on her," Grabiner pointed out, holding as fast as he could to his desperately neutral position. "She appears as a whole coherent thing, not as a disconnected mess. There are no records, even in the forbidden texts, of any true human chimæra even remotely like her. They are all twisted and pathetic and monstrous. They are all mad, driven insane by the multiplicity of their fragmented identity."

"If she has no visible seams, that simply means they are very skillfully sewn, or that the seams are all minute, and on the inside," the headmistress said dismissively. "The only way the divine essence of an archangel can be in that body is if it was manipulated, if it was placed there by artificial means. That is to say nothing of the body itself, which indicates mixed traits of both the human and the divine. If what Mr. Suzerain says about her childhood is to be believed, then that means she was the subject of experimentation more than fourteen years ago. It is possible that the seams and scars which were visible at first have become less conspicuous over time, and that she has developed a coherency of character as she has grown."

"Did he indicate the child was a frothing wreck when he found her?" Grabiner demanded.

"No," Petunia Potsdam said patiently. "He said that she was relatively quiet, but remarkably bright, so much so that it was generally unsettling. She did not behave like an ordinary toddler, in other words."

"Which proves nothing," Grabiner cut in. "She is not ordinary in any sense. The girl is really almost  _offensively_  intelligent and apparently remarkably ignorant of this fact. If she had behaved like an ordinary child, then I might have called foul."

"In this case I believe that her uncanniness falls in favor of her being manufactured," the headmistress said grimly. "You are correct. Her genius is difficult to take the shape of. She may have a thoroughly non-human brain."

"But to make a chimæra out of a human child - " Grabiner said, his mouth a thin line, "And such a small child at that - "

"You know there are people who would willingly pursue such research if they thought they could get away with it," the headmistress said with a tight frown. "Children are vulnerable and dependent on those who care for them. Really, if you were intent on meddling with human chimæra, a child would be the ideal subject. The real question is how such a person came to be in possession of the soul of a greater divine being in the first place. If we assume that this person is capable of acquiring such a prize, perhaps it is not so surprising that the chimæra that resulted has no visible seams. She is a masterwork: proof of sublime genius, even if it is deranged genius. Regardless of my thoughts concerning the five abominations, the cost of human chimæra is too great. One only has to think of the catalogue of what died in order that she be made."

"Please don't discuss her as if she were an object," Grabiner said tersely, turning his back on the headmistress.

"I meant no offense, Hieronymous," Potsdam said. "I am sorry if I made it sound as if I were not sympathetic to your situation, and to the situation of the child."

"Do you suspect her father?" Grabiner asked without turning around. "Noir Suzerain. The man she considers her father."

"That would be a logical assumption," the headmistress said hesitantly. "But while I do think Mr. Suzerain is capable of a great many things, this is somewhat beyond his ken, I believe. I am inclined to believe his story, even if it is very unusual. He showed me the letter. I found it to be authentic." She shrugged helplessly. "I find him to be authentic. I believe what he told me is the balance of what he knows. There is the chance that his memories have been altered, but I found no real evidence to suggest that, certainly not the large scale alterations that would have been necessary if he had been directly involved with her creation. On top of that, he simply doesn't have the knowledge or the facilities. He is a genuine wilder, and I sense he's got a story himself, although he hasn't yet been inclined to share it with me."

"I'm certain he's got a story," Grabiner fairly growled, "But considering what he told you about his daughter, I imagine it will include hot air balloon chases, the lost heir to the Savoy dynasty, and the Hope diamond."

"Perhaps," Petunia Potsdam said mildly. "It wouldn't really be any more farfetched than anything else that's happened in the vicinity of Miss Marianne Amoretta Suzerain. We must expect that fortune, the sheer potentiality of her fate, given the enormous divine favor of her soul, is such that it actively manipulates all circumstances related to her, both great and small. If this were true, then we would expect the farfetched to become commonplace, and that is exactly what we discover in relation to your young  _accidental_ wife."

"She fell in love with you when she met you, which is perhaps not totally surprising, given her tastes," the headmistress continued on. "But then you fell in love with her, which  _is_ surprising. You have never been keen on involving yourself with anyone, certainly not with a young student, a girl barely of age. I don't have to ask you the last time you kissed a woman before you took a shine to Amoretta because  _I_   _know_ ," she said pointedly, and he fairly growled in response, but she ignored him as she often did. "She fell in love with you, then you very conveniently fell in love with her, and then through very peculiar circumstances, you ended up wedded to this girl, quite obviously against your will, I might add, given your behavior at the ceremony. Amoretta is a gracious little thing not to have borne a grudge over how badly you treated her at the ceremony. Time and a lucky situation may change one's opinion, naturally. But whatever the tenor of the relative bliss you may be experiencing now, you were absolutely awful to her on the evening you exchanged vows. You did not want to marry her, and yet you did. I imagine that you did not mean to love her, and yet you do. As for the rest - you now find yourself with a demon as a personal enemy, keeping house in a wedding present from your father, whom you absolutely loathe, and now apparently ready to take an apprentice, which you have sworn for years that you would never do."

Grabiner wheeled to face her again at last. "Are you suggesting that she somehow  _arranged_ all of these unrelated circumstances?" he demanded.

"No," the headmistress disagreed placidly. "I'm suggesting that the  _circumstances_   _arranged_   _themselves_. She's got a yellow brick road before her, Hieronymous, and one of the places it led her was to you."

"Don't try to imply that my feelings are the result of something as laughably stupid as the dark hand of her fate. I refuse to be so insulted," Grabiner said caustically, gritting his teeth. "I love that girl because of who she is, because of what she says and does, because of who I am when I'm with her, not because it was foreordained."

"Perhaps you do," the headmistress said with fondness and sympathy. "And perhaps that's all part of it."

"I have nothing to prove to you," he said sharply, waving her off in disgust.

"You don't," she agreed. "Honestly, it doesn't really matter at all why or how you  _came_  to love her. You  _do_ love her, certainly, and are more than happy to throw your life away in her service. I know you well enough to be sure of that if I'm sure of anything at all." Petunia Potsdam tilted her head slightly to the side. "I am very fond of her myself," she admitted with a smile. "I have no wish to see harm come to her. But the fact remains: she is what she is. Neither of us can do anything to alter this truth, and we both know the rules of the world in which we live. The time will come when you will have to run, Hieronymous," she said very slowly. "And once you begin running, it is not likely that you will ever be able to stop. It is not a question of 'if.' It is simply a question of 'when.' She will be discovered. She is your wife, and that is enough to draw a great deal of scrutiny in itself. You can't keep her always hidden in your isolated little hermitage. They will come for her. And if you do flee to the Other, you will find yourself with a different and perhaps no less insurmountable set of problems."

"I know that," he said quietly. "But I would like," he faltered. "I would like to give her as much of this sort of life as I can, even if that means tempting fate."

Petunia Potsdam smiled wistfully and said, "I understand." Then she frowned and added, "Although I hope you do realize that you will make no friends among the Danson family by taking their eldest son as your apprentice. Even in the best of circumstances, they would not be overjoyed at the prospect, but if you get him killed or returned as a result of this business, then they will be out for your blood, as if you don't have a surfeit of enemies  _already_. It's not like you to involve an unconnected bystander in such a potentially explosive situation."

Grabiner frowned and said, "I take full responsibility for involving the boy. Ultimately, I am a selfish person," he said. "In the event that what you believe about Amoretta is near to the truth, then you are correct, very difficult circumstances are unavoidable. In that case I will be happy to count Mr. Danson as one of my assets, regardless of the damage it will do to him."

"Oh, Hieronymous," the headmistress said with a sigh, "You are a liar. But if that is what you say, I will leave it at that." She shifted her eyes to look out at sea. "You have tied yourself to trouble, bound yourself to it for four dozen lifetimes. I know I had a hand in doing it. I then thought it for the best, and perhaps it will still end up being so. No witch can truly predict the horizon or the consequences of an unseen future."

"I knew she was trouble from the first," Grabiner said. "In that sense, nothing has changed. I swore when I married her that I would keep her safe from harm, and if it is in my power to do so, then I will do it. If it is not in my power to do so at the moment, then I must change my circumstances, then I must change  _myself_ , until it becomes something that I can do. We have no other options."

"Of course you think so, because that's the sort of man you are," the headmistress said. "But you married her to keep her out of the power of your manus, and now you have the enmity of a Grand Duke of Duzakh, and you will eventually have the entire establishment of the Magistrate Inquisition arrayed against you. And let me tell you, young man," she fixed him with a steady eye, "If they ken that she is a chimæra, then your earlier unpleasant dealings with the magistrates will seem like a trip on the good ship lollipop by comparison. No one could fault you if you felt you had to reassess your position in regards to your wife in view of the change in her circumstances. You have only known her for ten months. I have no intention of belittling your attachment to her. I am simply pointing out that as far as you or I am concerned, she might have sprung into existence a few days before last autumn's term began, not that you have a great deal of room to reconsider your position, given the binding oath you swore. To some degree, what happens to her will always be your business, because you have made it so."

"Yes," Grabiner said, his brows drawing together as his countenance became stormy, "And I am glad it is the way that it is. Before we were bound by a blood oath, I had already sworn an oath to protect her. I did not swear to give her my protection except in circumstances that were troublesome or otherwise inconvenient to me. There is no caveat to the marriage oath that I am aware of, no escape clause that reads 'I'll protect you, but only from very ordinary troubles. Should disaster strike, you must fend for yourself.'"

"As usual, you have no concern for your own self-interest," the headmistress said with a delicate snort. "I did not mean to offend you, or besmirch your honor which you are so keen to avow does not exist at all. I am too acquainted with your character to imagine that you would ever abandon that girl, even had you not become physically and emotionally involved with her. You're not always terribly prudent. I just hate to imagine that I will inevitably lose a very good teacher to this business. It seems like I never can keep them. The moment I count someone as quite immovably settled they go and get themselves branded as an enemy of the state. You never do anything by half measures. I honestly have never met someone so determined to jump into his trousers with both legs at once." She shook her head again briefly. "I am glad you are happy, Hieronymous. I am pleased that you suit one another so well, but I do hope, in the end, that your Galatea is worth all the suffering you may have to endure to keep her."

Grabiner turned his back on the headmistress again, looking not at the sea, but at the little cottage covered in woodbine.

"She has already given me commonplace joy and pleasure and happiness," he said. "I am determined to carry her through her sorrows and her anguish, not because I feel that I owe it to her, but because I could never trust her to anyone else. I would rather be with her in uncertainty and terror than alone in the unbearable plainness of existence."

"You can be very poetic," Petunia Potsdam said fondly. "And when you love, you surely do love ardently. It is certainly not within my power to separate her from you, nor do I wish to. I just felt that you ought to be reminded of the reality of your circumstances. I wish that I could guarantee you safe passage through the vagaries of life. Certainly you are two of my favorite people." She looked philosophically out to sea. "But perhaps we will find ourselves surprised. That girl is a regular pair dadeni. Who knows what she will draw out of herself next? She may yet deliver us all."

* * *

After Amoretta's enlightening conversation with the unicorn, and while the headmistress still had custody of her husband, Amoretta went to determine if their new houseguest was up and about. She met Raven Darkstar in the upstairs hallway, on her way to the bathroom, and her eyes inadvertently widened when she took in the girl's state of dress, or rather  _undress_.

Amoretta had seen the bone slender girl in her pajamas the evening previous, as she had put her classmate to bed herself, after William Danson had been hustled out of guest accommodations and into a location 'more suitably reflecting his current situation.' Raven had then been given custody of his room, after Cord and Tansy had together turned the room over and changed out all the linens while Raven had a bath.

But last evening, Amoretta had seen Raven in a voluminous lace bed jacket, and now she wore no such thing. Instead, she wore a low-cut negligee of dark purple silk that put her considerable bosom out on display like a nest of dumplings in a bamboo basket. The night dress fell to her knees and was trimmed with delicate burgundy lace the color of dried blood. She looked sleepy and slightly disoriented, her dark hair a little flyaway, but Amoretta had a very difficult time looking anywhere but at her breasts. They drew her eyes like the gaze of a basilisk, but fortunately they did not seem to have the power to turn onlookers to stone. The fact that Raven was one of the more well endowed girls in the freshman class was a bit of information that Amoretta had acquired early on in the school year. Invariably, the relative size of breasts was a common topic on Horse Hall as well as on Wolf Hall, both places where she spent a reasonable amount of her time. Iris Academy's modest uniform left a lot to the imagination, and while Amoretta had seen Raven at the May Day Ball, the cut of her dress had been rather conservative, and she had worn a bolero.

Upon encountering her in the hallway, Amoretta owned that she had as yet not seen Raven to her greatest advantage. Her breasts were as round and full as profiteroles, and gave every indication that they might suddenly and unexpectedly spring out of her nightgown to assault the unwary.

"Good morning," Amoretta said cheerfully, and tried very hard not to stare obviously at Raven's breasts. This was very difficult, as they were so large they seemed to generate their own kind of gravity.

"Good morning," Raven returned, covering her mouth with a slender hand as she yawned. "I'm sorry to have slept so late. I suppose I was utterly exhausted," she said.

"Well, you were out in terrible weather," Amoretta said sympathetically as she endeavored greatly not to stare.

"I hope I haven't inconvenienced you, or anyone else," she said a bit hesitantly, "By sleeping in."

"No, you're fine," Amoretta assured her with a wave of her hand. "We've been carrying on as usual. You can have breakfast whenever you like, or just wait for lunch. You know, your nightgown is really very pretty. It's very ladylike."

Amoretta thought back to her own friendly, nonthreatening polkadot pajamas. It wasn't as if she could carry off a negligee anway. She would have looked like a girl who had dressed herself in an old pillowcase.

"Thank you," Raven said idly, pausing to briefly stretch her arms over her head as she arched her back, which brought her breasts into greater prominence. "I do think it is important that one always dress oneself according to individual, interior character. I am a midnight rose."

"You certainly are," Amoretta agreed enthusiastically. "But I shouldn't keep you out in the hallway like this. You run along and get dressed and we'll have a nice chat about everything while you eat."

"Very well," Raven said with a liquid roll of her milky white shoulders.

"Oh," Amoretta recalled as Raven disappeared into the washroom, "I almost forgot. The headmistress is here and she'd like to talk to you when you're ready."

Raven paused for a long moment, one hand very still on the door frame.

"I shall do as you ask," she said gravely, "But first, you must listen to my awful tale of woe and weals."

"All right," Amoretta said, slightly confounded. "I promise to listen as long as you want to talk. Just. Um. After you get dressed."

And Raven found that quite agreeable.

* * *

After she had dressed herself, Raven asked if there might be any place in the house where they could have a private conversation. Amoretta thought that most rooms in the house would probably suit this purpose, provided one simply closed the door, but at last settled on her study as being the most cozy room for a private conference. Cord had soon delivered a plate of chicken salad sandwiches for the ladies to eat, and Amoretta asked him to beg for the headmistress's patience while the two girls had their talk.

Raven very tidily disposed of two sandwich triangles before she commenced to speak.

"You may have wondered why I came here," she said into a prettily curled fist. "I must confess that I've run away from home."

Amoretta, who was sitting on the rug, leaned back slightly and nodded. "Yes," she said. "You told me that last night. That's one of the reasons I let you in. I'm still not sure why you decided to come here, though. It's not like I mind, or anything. I honestly am happy to have you, although I am sorry for your sake that trouble brought you here. But I am a little puzzled. We're not exactly bosom buddies." As she said the word, Amoretta's eyes invariably returned to Raven's chest. Her houseguest was now wearing a fitted black robe with a loose skirt and bell sleeves, but Amoretta was well aware of what powerful assets the dress concealed. "So I'm not exactly sure why you thought of me before anybody else."

Amoretta was being entirely sincere. She was perfectly happy to have Raven as a houseguest, but was altogether unsure why the dark haired girl had applied to her for aid. They were on friendly terms, since Amoretta got along well with all the members of her class, and most of the upperclassmen as well, but Amoretta did not really think they had spoken to one another more than half a dozen times outside of classroom exercises. Of course, Amoretta could think of one towering reason Raven Darkstar might have come calling in the middle of tempestuous thunderstorm, but she did not want to think badly of the girl, who seemed to be in real distress. If she had come simply for the chance to be around Grabiner, then Amoretta could be sympathetic, although to arrive without invitation was certainly impolite. She doubted that the man himself would be quite so forgiving and magnanimous.

"Why," Raven said, drawing back slightly, the picture of bewildered apprehension, "You're my student council representative, are you not?"

"I am," Amoretta admitted somewhat sheepishly. She was quite ready to go above and beyond the call of duty as a member of the student council. That wasn't the issue. She had an aptitude for public service, and was always ready to do someone a good turn. "But doesn't that mean you could have gone to Minnie Cochran too? I mean, she's class president."

Raven flushed rosily and averted her eyes. "Certain circumstances prevent me from taking Miss Cochran into my confidence," Raven said politely. "I am afraid it is absolutely impossible for me to be granted sanctuary in her home. I came to you because I had no other option. Otherwise," she admitted, looking down at her lap through dark lashes, "Otherwise I should be totally friendless."

"Well, you're not friendless," Amoretta assured her with a pat on the knee. "I'll certainly help you the best that I can, and I know Hieronymous - " she trailed off, because she was not entirely sure what sort of help she could promise from her husband, who was not altogether enthusiastic about the fact that the girl from Snake Hall was their guest. "He'll certainly be glad to help you get on your feet."  _And out of our house as soon as possible_ , Amoretta mentally finished to herself. Her husband was anxious to restore peace and tranquility to his home, and quite aware of the partiality Raven had shown to him during the previous school year.

"I'm glad," Raven said sorrowfully, and seemed anything but. "Because you must understand that I come to you bearing a terrible burden. I have fled in an attempt to escape the hideous curse of my family," she finished ominously.

"The Darkstars are under some kind of curse?" Amoretta asked with some interest, leaning forward over her knees. Although she wouldn't have wanted to wish misfortune on anyone, Amoretta was keenly interested in it because she very much liked to help people sort out their problems, and she had never before had the pleasure of helping to sort out a family curse.

"Oh no," Raven said with a slight toss of her head that sent her dark hair tumbling over her shoulders. "You've misunderstood. My family name isn't 'Darkstar.' It's much more horrendous than that. I wasn't born 'Raven Darkstar.' That was a name I took myself when I was eleven years old."

"Really?" Amoretta asked, now deeply interested. Based on the discussions she had had with Grabiner over the course of her marriage, she understood it was perfectly possible to permanently change one's true name, but to do so involved both singleness of mind and a very complicated blood ritual. That Raven had managed to do this on her own at age eleven was compelling in and of itself. "What name were you born with, then?"

"I dare not speak it," she said. "Because it's too awful. It is enough to say that I am descended from the ancient house of Cysgodion. The loathsome curse struck us some generations ago, and I am sorry to say it has affected every living member of my family, save for one, transforming them in a most odious way."

"Well, that sounds really bad," Amoretta said, because she could not think of anything else to say in response to what Raven had so far revealed. It certainly did sound very bad.

"And once stricken by the curse, those who are under its terrible magic feel compelled to bring others under its effects," Raven said darkly. "Which is why, for my own safety, I have had to flee from my mother."

Amoretta's eyes widened. "You don't mean to say that your mother tried to hurt you - " she asked.

"Not physically," Raven assured her as she raised a pale hand to forestall Amoretta's distress. "That is not the way that the curse works its evil magic. But she wished to scar me forever mentally and emotionally. If I did not find her so dangerous to my person, I should never have thought of encroaching on your good hospitality. But she chases me relentlessly wherever I go, and unexpectedly, most people who hear of my plight are quite ready to betray me to my mother." Raven closed her eyes as she explained, "That is the reason that I cannot ask for protection from the Cochran family. My mother and Minnie's mother were at school together, and you have some personal experience, I believe, with the fact that Minnie Cochran, although a very amiable girl, cannot be trusted with secrets. If I applied to Minnie for help, her mother would know immediately, and then I would be given over into my mother's custody immediately."

"That sounds awful," Amoretta said sympathetically. "I suppose it's because you haven't reached your majority yet, but even so, you'd think that someone would listen to what you say, particularly if your mother is actively trying to hurt you. But people have a tendency to think the best of parents, in my experience," Amoretta said with a helpless shrug, "And adults always side with adults on these things, pretty much regardless of circumstances." Amoretta thought about things. "You won't really have majority until you finish sophomore year, but maybe you ought to seek emancipation if things are very bad. I know it's a big step, but maybe it's the step you need to take."

"I," Raven hesitated. "I love my mother and my sisters very much. I'd really rather not create such a rift between us as that. I would be happy if only I could bring her around to my way of thinking, if only I could convince her to let me be as I wish to be. I am nearly seventeen years old. Surely at this point I ought to have charge of my own destiny."

Raven had become slightly agitated as she spoke, shifting in her chair and fidgeting. It was the first time that the picture of her cool despair had been marred in any way by less picturesque emotions.

Amoretta gave her an encouraging smile. "I think you'd better tell me all about it," she said. "And that way I can think about what might be best for us to do. I won't really understand things until you explain them."

"Very well," Raven said with a grave nod, "But I must tell you now that the story of my family is a most tragic tale. You may find some parts of it to be quite shocking. I know I did, when I first became acquainted with the particulars. But if you must know, then I shall tell all. I think perhaps it would lighten my heart to have another soul understand the whole awful business in the same way that I do."

She ate another sandwich triangle in silence, and then began to relate her story.

"My story cannot begin with myself," she said apologetically, "As everything began quite a long time before I was born. I mentioned before the family name of Cysgodion, from that perhaps you may deduce that we are originally of Welsh ancestry. It is an ancient family name, ap Cysgodion, dating from well before the Norman Conquest, but I am afraid like many such ancient names, it is extinct in the main line. What remains of the family rests in my own family line of," here Raven took a very deep breath before she dared speak the name, "Peabody. The Peabodys were once the faithful retainers of the Cysgodion family, and when the last scion of that family passed on without leaving a legitimate heir, then what remained of their legacy was the bastard blood of the Peabody family," her cheeks colored faintly as she related, "I'm not the slightest bit self-conscious of the fact that I am descended through less than honorable liaisons. We can certainly prove our ancestry by the ownership of several rare relics of the Cysgodion clan, as well as stewardship of the family magic. Only heirs of blood could carry the family magic as we have for generations."

Her eyes shifted sidelong to thoughtfully gaze on Amoretta, who was consuming a sandwich triangle in rapt attention and she noted, "I hardly expect that you would be familiar with the history of the witch families of the Free Nations, but here, the Peabodys are an old and respectable family. We had a great fortune once, and we still claim ownership of a great estate, Porphyrogene, but it is all shut up now, with no one living there but bats and mice. And now I shall tell you the thing that might perhaps make you shun me, if not for the identity of your husband," Raven gave her a faint smile. "It is something you would have known already if you had been raised according to our traditions, but I must admit that I have purposefully kept it back from you. The great line of Cysgodion and the Peabodys besides, we are all necromancers."

Amoretta's brows drew together. "I'm a wildseed, so maybe I don't quite understand it all, but isn't necromancy one of the - "

"Five abominations, yes," Raven noted serenely. "That is why I thought you might be shocked. But, unlike the other abominations, necromancy occupies an unusual position, half forbidden, and half permitted. You see, when the abominations were first being codified, about three hundred and fifty years ago, witches found that they could not quite do without necromancy. It was too important a discipline to be entirely forbidden, and besides that, necromancers have always wielded quite a lot of power, even in relation to the Magistrate Inquisition. And so necromancy is not totally forbidden, only  _mostly_ forbidden."

"But how can something be  _mostly_ forbidden?" Amoretta asked in consternation. "Either it is allowed, or it isn't, right? Something is either against the law, or it isn't against the law."

"Some things are against the law for the general populace, but not for special practitioners, is that not correct?" Raven asked with a slow smile. "That is how it is with necromancy. Necromancy is absolutely forbidden to all but the members of six very old families, who have rights to become licensed necromancers. At the moment, there are only nine human necromancers in the entire world, including the Other. My own family, the Peabodys, used to be the seventh of the six great families of necromancers, but I am afraid we lost our license to practice when we fell out of favor with the Queen of Hel in my great-grandmother's time. Therefore, while we still carry the legacy of the family magic, we are unable to use the Cysgodion paradigm legally." Raven frowned and her brows drew together. "As you might imagine, this deprivation of our vocation and our avocation came as a great blow to the family. Our fortunes suffered considerably, and the great house Porphyrogene was eventually shut up entirely. I can still remember going there as a very small girl, and playing among the dark, twisted trees of the park. It is a very beautiful house, filled with much forbidden magic and many terrible secrets."

Although Raven seemed to be describing a haunted house, Amoretta could see the wistful smile of memory on her face. Apparently the family home was much beloved, even if it sounded more horrifying than charming.

"It was in my grandfather's generation that the dreadful family curse began to take hold of us, although perhaps one might date it earlier, contemporaneous with the great embarrassment of losing our license to practice necromancy," Raven said. "Since that time, the fortunes of our family have been bad indeed. At the moment, our entire line consists of myself, my mother, my grandfather, and my two sisters. Apart from my grandfather, I am the only member of my family with any real sense of what we have lost. That is one of the more subtle poisons of the curse upon us. The knowledge of the family's history, traditions, and indeed the family magic itself find in me their only preserver. Neither my mother, nor my sisters have the slightest interest in the rich tapestry of our heritage. My grandfather, although I hold him in the greatest honor and esteem, cannot live forever. My mother believes that the old ways should die with him, but I am neither so shortsighted, nor so cruel. Even if the family magic cannot be practiced, it ought to be preserved, along with our traditions, and there is always the chance that great deeds or," here her cheeks colored again, "A fortunate alliance, might restore to us our rights and privileges. It is on this point that we break from one another so violently."

"And so because of all this, what you've told me, your mother bears you ill will?" Amoretta asked thoughtfully.

"She bears me most poisonous ill will," Raven agreed decisively.

"Why not go to your grandfather?" Amoretta asked, thinking things over. "It seems like the two of you think alike, even if your mother disapproves."

A look of pain crossed Raven's face momentarily. "I am afraid that is quite out of my power," she said slowly. "Some years ago, when I was only ten, my grandfather removed himself from this world to the Other. He could not bear to stay when Porphyrogene had to be shut up, and there were not finances to run it. He lives now in Horizon, and no longer dreams of setting foot into this world. I have not learned enough magic to go to him safely. That must wait until after my graduation at least. I have not seen him now for nearly seven years, and I am very sorry for it, although we do write to one another regularly. Of all my family, grandfather has always understood me best. He used to tell me that I was quite atavistic. I have in me the lost greatness of days gone by," she said with quiet dignity. "It is my wish to restore our family to what it once was, and that is also his wish. It is very bad that I cannot depend on his aid as yet," she shook her head seriously, "But that is how it is. My grandfather has many great talents, but is ill equipped to function in modern mundane society. He has no real affection for the modern world, and certainly no understanding of it. This is yet another reason he retired to Horizon when he did."

"I see," Amoretta said. "Well, you do seem to be in a pickle, but you still haven't told me exactly what the curse on your family does," she pointed out. "Unless it's forbidden for you to speak of, or something. I don't want to get you in trouble."

"I may speak of it," Raven said, "Although I do not like to dwell on it. It is a very insidious curse, and curls its subtle tendrils around my kin silently, so the rot within passes unnoticed until they are quite corrupted. When they were still young, I had hope that my two sisters might yet escape it, but it is clear to me now that they have not. The dreaded curse that has struck my family and has come close to ruining it entirely is so terrible because it is so grey, so ceaseless, so monotonous in its advance. It is the curse," she paused, and Amoretta leaned forward again in anticipation, "Of mediocrity."

"Mediocrity?" Amoretta asked in a mixture of confusion and incredulousness.

"Yes," Raven said with a somber nod. "Mediocrity. My mother and my sisters are quite horrifyingly bland and pedestrian. They have no taste for the romantic, nor any scope of vision. They are extremely ordinary and mundane."

"And this terrible fate that you only barely escaped by running away from home, it was?" Amoretta asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It was abhorrent, I assure you." Raven said primly. "My mother, absolutely against my wishes, intends for me to go to, I can hardly bear to think of it, to," she finished in a hushed whisper as if she spoke forbidden words, "to  _summer camp_."

"Summer camp?" Amoretta repeated in disbelief. "You ran away from home so you wouldn't have to go to summer camp?"

Raven clearly sensed that Amoretta had not yet understood the full weight of her personal mortification at the idea, so she hastened to explain. "It is a summer camp for mundane girls, not for witches," she said. "My mother means to force me to mingle with mundanes of my own age because she has some demented idea that it will be good for me. Honestly, I would rather die than go to such an awful place."

"Is it an evil summer camp?" Amoretta asked, struggling to understand Raven's distress. "I mean, she's not trying to send you to Camp Crystal Lake, or something, is she? Some place with a lot of unsolved murders, or a history of escaped lunatics?"

"No," Raven said with great dignity. "I should perhaps be interested in going if such were the case. It is called Marigold Hill Girls' Camp. I have no reason to suspect it has anything like a sinister reputation."

"Um," Amoretta began hesitantly, because this was clearly a subject concerning which Raven had powerful emotions, "I don't know if you've ever been to summer camp, but it's really not that bad," she said. "If it's just a regular sort of  _camping_  summer camp, then all you'll do is learn campfire songs, and go canoeing, and take cold showers and stuff. I guess you're a little old to be going to a camp like that, but if you've never been, it can be a really great experience. You'll learn teamwork, and how not to complain, and how to do your part, and help everyone who needs it. You'll learn to be a good camper! I went to camp for two summers in a row, and was a girl scout besides. Or, I guess I  _am_ a girl scout. I don't think you really ever stop being one once you learn the girl scout law."

Raven did not seem to be particularly interested in Amoretta's sentimental attachment to the girl scout law, because she shook her head fiercely.

"It's not that I necessarily object to sleeping out in a pile of dead leaves, being bitten by a horde of small stinging insects, and learning upsetting camp songs, although certainly I would not rank the activities high on the list of those I am eager to try," Raven said. "But you do not seem to really understand her  _intention_  in sending me to this camp. She believes I am too fanciful, that I spend too much of my time on dreams and other impractical pursuits. I am not like her and I am not like my two sisters, and she wishes to make me so. She believes, even at this late date, that she can force me to conform with what she imagines the perfect daughter to be. But she has misjudged my will," Raven said with resolve. "I will not submit to it.  _I refuse_."

Amoretta gave Raven a painful smile. "I guess you've already tried talking things out with her - " she began.

"She is uninterested in listening to anything I have to say," Raven said with a frown. "She has always been dismissive of my wishes and my opinions because they do not suit her. She believes that her way is the only right way, and she hides behind the facade of always doing things for my benefit. It is laughable really," Raven said, "To imagine that she acts in my best interests. She is a very ordinary person, and it discomfits her greatly that she has had one very exceptional child. I am not of her kind, and she cannot stand that. She will not let me grow as I ought. She wants to force me down to a more comfortable level, to keep me down at heel. She demands that I be familiar, but beyond that,  _controlled_."

"And you think this is all because of some curse?" Amoretta asked in confusion, still trying to get her head around things.

"It is," Raven said decisively. "The curse on our family is mighty and fell and it seeks to strangle that last little bit of life that clings so tenuously, that last glimmer of light and hope that may lead us to a darker, more appropriate destiny. It is an awful thing, this curse, and I have resigned myself to always fighting against it until the inevitable day when death overtakes me. That is the fate of some people: to struggle against impossible odds and at the last be overcome. If that is my fate, then so be it. I would rather fight to the last than surrender to the unfathomable fate of mundanity."

"That's a very heroic sentiment," Amoretta said awkwardly. She wasn't quite sure how to go about understanding everything that Raven had told her. It was very difficult to take it all seriously, although it seemed almost painfully serious to the dark haired girl who sat in the petite armchair. It was clear enough to Amoretta that Raven certainly had a problem, and not a problem that could simply be solved by berating her and suggesting she go home and attend summer camp as ordered. If Raven really did not want to go to summer camp, then Amoretta saw no reason why she ought to. Even if Raven's claims seemed outlandish and silly in the light of day, they were obviously real enough to the sensitive girl who had begun to shift awkwardly in her seat again, as if anxiously awaiting Amoretta's verdict. Apparently, Raven had gone to others for help but had never been taken seriously. Amoretta was perfectly willing to believe that Raven had come to them because she otherwise had no place to go. Amoretta could not form a really accurate opinion of the situation without more information, but she was willing to be supportive and helpful regardless of the circumstances. She would have faith in Raven. She would not turn away someone who sincerely needed help.

"The headmistress is here to tell me that my mother is looking for me," Raven said quietly. "I'm sure she is. And I suppose you'll ask that I go back with her. Everyone does."

Amoretta shook her head and gave Raven a smile. "If your mother is looking for you, then I'm sure she's worried. I do think you should let her know that you're safe. Send her a letter, or something. If you don't want to see her, then I'm not going to make you. You don't even have to tell her where you're staying, and you're welcome to stay here with us as long as you need to. I don't know that there's an easy solution to your problems," she said as she tilted her head to the side. "I don't understand all your circumstances, but I do believe that you're a good person. You wouldn't ask for help if you didn't need it. You know your own situation best. If you don't think it's safe or healthy for you at home, I would never ask you to go back there. We'll figure things out."

At that, Raven gave her a genuine smile, slow, sweet and unexpected. She blinked back tears and covered her face in her hands.

"Thank you," she said gratefully, and Amoretta got to her feet, overcome by her own feelings, and gave Raven a comforting hug.

* * *

When Raven and Amoretta at last exited their cloister - after Raven had taken a few moments to compose herself - they found Petunia Potsdam waiting for them in the sitting room. She invited Raven to 'take a little stroll with her' around the grounds of the cottage, and with a meaningful sidelong glance at Amoretta, Raven agreed to walk with her. This left Amoretta to explain the circumstances of their new (and possibly semi-permanent) houseguest to Grabiner.

After a little hunting, she found him on the back terrace, leaning on the balustrade, staring out to sea. He looked up as she approached and opened one of his arms in silent invitation. She accepted and moved to sidle up next to him and he folded his arm around her, so she found herself inside the circle of his arm.

"I've invited her to stay as long as she needs to stay," Amoretta volunteered, because she thought it was best that she get the most difficult part out of the way as quickly as she could. There was no use trying to hide it.

"Yes," Grabiner said evenly. "I had imagined you would, because that's the sort of person you are."

"You're not angry?" Amoretta asked, mildly surprised.

"I'm resigned," Grabiner said flatly. "You will inevitably always put yourself right in the center of any scrap of trouble you can possibly lay hands on," he said. "However, I would like you to know that no matter what you say to me, there is absolutely no way to induce me to take Miss Darkstar as an apprentice, no matter how much you may want to fill this house past its rational occupancy."

"I wouldn't dream of asking you to do such a thing," Amoretta said with a welcome laugh. "Besides, I don't think 'apprentice' is the position she's angling for, vis-á-vis Hieronymous Grabiner," Amoretta added wryly before becoming more serious. "But she did need a place to stay, and people willing to listen to her. She's in a tough spot."

"I'm sure," Grabiner said dryly. "I'm fairly certain all that girl really needs is a good knock on the head from reality, which I am sure she will manage on her own whether or not we choose to intervene in her affairs."

"I'm sure she'll get one," Amoretta agreed with a smile. "So there's really no reason to wish one upon her. Reality knocks us all on the head every once in a while. That is because the world can be very unkind. It's up to individual people to supply the kindness. Besides, I think Raven may have had her share of knocks already," Amoretta hazarded. "Of course, we both know that she's  _dramatic_ , but that doesn't mean that she hasn't really suffered. It's awfully difficult when your parents don't understand the choices that you make."

Grabiner grunted at that, and did not seem likely to comment further. When he spoke, it was to change the subject.

"The headmistress informs me that your clothing arrived at the school. I've sent the boy over to fetch the box," he said.

"That'll be nice," Amoretta said as she perked up. "I sort of miss wearing robes at this point, and I'm sure Tansy's tired of washing my same six t-shirts over and over again."

Again Grabiner grunted and afterwards they both fell silent. He seemed to be thinking something over carefully. All at once, his arm tightened around her shoulders, drawing her closer to him. She looked up in surprise, and found that he was looking down at her steadily in a way that made the color rise in her cheeks.

"It is a strange and perilous world that you have chosen to inhabit, Marianne Amoretta," he said seriously. "If you had the Choice to make again, the one you made when you were thirteen years old, would you choose this one, or the one from whence you came?"

Amoretta's mouth turned up at the corner in amused confusion, "Hieronymous, what are you even asking?" she wondered aloud. "Of course I would choose just the same. It wasn't really as if I chose to be a part of this world at all. I was  _born_ a part of it. I think maybe for years and years I was looking for this place, I was looking for  _you_ , because even in that very first moment - " she laughed a little to cover her embarrassment and leaned her head against his chest. "It's not like I believe in an unchangeable destiny written in the stars or anything absolutely goofy like that. It's just that, from the beginning what I felt like telling you wasn't 'how do you do?' or 'you're swell!' or even 'I love you!' What I really wanted to say was, 'I'm home.'" She ducked her head slightly. "And now I'm sure you'll tell me that  _I'm_  being dramatic. I mean, in the beginning I never imagined - I never  _thought_ \- I didn't think that you would find anything in me to love. I loved you and I wanted badly to  _be_  loved by you, but I couldn't even imagine a circumstance where you might really want  _me_ , even when I played pretend, even when I made up the fanciest, most sentimental daydreams I could. I'm so silly and awkward and strange," she said ruefully. "I'm not heart-stoppingly beautiful - "

"You've nearly stopped my heart a number of times," Grabiner disagreed.

Amoretta stuck her tongue out at him. "I'm trying to be serious," she complained. "I couldn't think of anything I had that you might want, so imaging the two of us really  _together_ ," she flushed and looked down. "I couldn't do it. I was happy just to be able to spend time with you, honestly. I was always making up reasons to speak to you, because it made me happy, no matter what we talked about. I'm not sure if you can even understand how giddy I got every time I opened up the door to the accounting room and found you there, just like you were waiting for me. I guess I thought that maybe if I worked very hard, if I did my very best, then maybe over time I might become good enough so that you would think of me, just a little - "

"I never labored under such doubt and uncertainty, and I therefore had the luxury of inaction," he said, cutting off her shy confession. "I never had to wonder. I was confident you would have me from the very beginning."

"The very beginning?" Amoretta asked hesitantly.

He shrugged, "Whenever that was," he said. "I can't be certain now. When I try to spool backwards, I never seem to get to the time before, unless that is simply the time  _without you_ , the time  _before you_ , which I can certainly remember. But once you begin in my memory - I cannot recall any you that I have not loved. Even the idiotic little girl who knocked me down and then dropped her suitcase on her own foot," he said with a brief, wry smile.

Amoretta pressed herself against his side, strangely overcome by shyness at this admission. It was the first time he had ever openly admitted to loving her in those strange, early days. It was a thought she had carried close to her heart for months and months, never really daring to hope it might be true, sure that she was just casting backwards to rearrange the past to suit herself. But even then, he had always been there. He had kept the letter she had written for him. He had more than once stopped to hold the door for her, although this was not a thing he did for anyone else. He had been under the tree to catch her when she fell, and had half carried her back to the car after she had fallen asleep in her tea at the Glen. After Thanksgiving break, she had hunted him down the day she got back, bursting with news of the little New Hampshire farmhouse, and he had allowed her to sit near him and had vaguely listened to her chatter, even though she was trespassing in the otherwise empty faculty lounge. Only after she had tired herself out with talking had he escorted her to the door, turned out the lights in the lounge, and given her ten demerits before retiring to his own room. Right before she left for the Christmas holiday she had cornered him in the accounting room and teased him, calling him Ebenezer, and wondering if the holiday might grow his heart a few sizes. He had called her Belle and suggested she was getting coal for Christmas.

"If I had not been so arrogant, then I might have saved you being hurt," Grabiner said quietly. "But I couldn't fathom that you had a life outside of flirting with and flattering me. That was my own self-centered short-sightedness. I imagined that I claimed the whole of your attention, and the fact that you had mine was a suitable guarantee of your safety against whatever might possibly threaten a high school student. Of course, I was stupidly insensible of the fact that I had never said anything of the kind to you, and I had certainly not declared it to the public at large. I took your attention for granted, and I took your safety for granted. I clearly understand my actions now, even if I did not understand them then. I might have saved us both a great deal of heartache and anguish if I had been able to be honest about my feelings in a timely fashion."

"Hieronymous, what are you talking about? We are where we are now because of everything that's happened. What could you have possibly done differently?" Amoretta asked with a rueful laugh. "Stopped me after class one day and asked me to marry you?"

"You'd have agreed immediately," Grabiner said blandly.

"I'd have broken down crying," Amoretta protested, laughing as she shook her head. "Because I'm sure I'd have thought you were making fun of me. It's really cruel to tease a girl who's in love," she said indignantly.

"I wouldn't have been teasing you," he said levelly in a way that made her heart skip a beat.

"You wouldn't have asked me," Amoretta denied, puffing her cheeks out in consternation. "You're just being silly, now."

"I might have," he said slowly. "Given the luxury of time. It's not that you had to change yourself to attract me, to become something that you're not. I could not help but look at you, even from the first. I wanted to understand you. When you spoke to me, I answered you because that gave  _me_ pleasure. Whenever you found me waiting, it was because I wanted to see you. Even considering what an incredible imbecile I can be, I might have eventually noticed that you're the only thing I care about in this world. It's you that I want in my life, and my heart," his voice dropped a little lower as he leaned in toward her to add, "And my bed."

Amoretta shivered and she heard the brief, quiet sound of his amusement.

"You wouldn't have had to ask me to marry you to get me into all three," she answered faintly.

"That was a readily apparent truth I did my best to ignore for almost eight months," he said. "Now I really can't imagine why I did. Everyone at that school assumes I've had carnal knowledge of you since convocation. I'd like to at least be  _deserving_  of the terrible reputation I've acquired."

" _Hieronymous_ ," Amoretta laughed, both scandalized and a little dizzy from imagining just what it was that he had suggested.

"One wonders what next year's freshman class will think of me, given the events of this term," Grabiner said with a shrug.

"I plan to give them plenty to talk about," Amoretta volunteered, then shook her head briefly. "I'm Lady Halifax, aren't I?" she asked with a smile. "And don't think the students of Iris Academy won't know it, Mr. Chips."

"I'm sure by Thanksgiving break they'll be showering me with rosepetals and accolades," he said with a snort. "If there is one thing I have learned since September it is  _woe betide any idiot unfortunate enough to underestimate you._ "

"Sometimes that idiot is you," Amoretta pointed out affectionately.

"Yes, well, nobody's perfect," he agreed.

They were both silent for a moment, and then he spoke again.

"I knew what your answer would be, even before I asked," Grabiner said as he laid one of his hands on her head and rubbed her hair with comfortable familiarity. "I just wanted to hear you say it."

"It'll always be my answer," she said seriously. "Even if the reasons behind it change, my answer will always stay the same."

"Yes," he said, "I know."


	10. Eight: This Pain Is Just Too Real

 

Before the imaginary sun tracked particularly far across the sky, Amoretta and Grabiner returned to the house proper, where they found Raven curled up on the sofa, pensively staring out the window into the garden. Her dark hair was thrown over one shoulder, and seemed to circle her like the unknown waters of Oceanus, a veil and a boundary that no living mortal might cross. She was an island unto herself, melancholy and withdrawn. Grabiner eyed his wife silently, one eyebrow raised, then turned his back on the both of them and sat down at the piano, where he began shuffling through the musical compositions in the magazine stand near his feet. Amoretta gave him a consoling pat on the shoulder. This was her territory and she knew it. He was a reluctant participant at best, faintly radiating his conviction that she would suffer more trouble than pleasure from her current predicament, and that he would eventually be called to pull her back from the worst of it. Amoretta didn't begrudge him for how he thought about things. It was his way: as familiar as his dark hair and the smudgey shadows under his eyes that never seemed to fade, no matter how long he slept.

_Barely on your feet again after your last spill, and already into some new trouble._

It was what he was thinking. She could feel it in her bones even if he did not say it himself.

Grabiner was wary and more careful of her than she was of herself. Beyond that he was generally uninterested in involving himself in the problems of other people, particularly students.

She, on the other hand, had a regular  _knack_ for problems.

_Each to his own talents,_  he had once told her.

She wasn't really sure what her talents were, even now, but she did have some idea of her responsibilities. Raven had come to her seeking help and guidance. Amoretta had accepted the girl into her home, which meant that until the little blackbird found a new roost, Amoretta was responsible for her. She had not forgotten what Grabiner had told her before carrying her over the threshold into this strange, new world. She was a queen, and that meant something, even if the borders of her kingdom were marked off by flower beds and an old cow shed.

_It wouldn't have mattered either way,_ Grabiner might have said with resignation to her small back.  _You feel responsible for everybody, regardless._

That was true and she couldn't really help it.

But he knew that.

And she knew it too.

Amoretta went over to the sofa and flopped onto it next to Raven.

"Has the headmistress gone?" she asked.

Raven nodded, and her lustrous hair rippled like dark water. Her mouth seemed thin because her lips were pressed together.

"What's happened?" Amoretta asked gently, reaching up to pat Raven's head as if she were a small cat. It was something Grabiner did to her often, to comfort her when she was distressed. It was easy and commonplace.

_People like being cared for,_ Amoretta reflected.  _Especially people who've had a rough time._

Raven seemed to be trying very hard not to begin crying again. She had very carefully schooled her face to look solemn and morose, but an unbidden sniffle escaped, and when she spoke it was not in measured, dulcet grace, but rather with an unattractive squeak.

"My mother's at the school," she said. "Now. Today. She's been looking for me."

Amoretta winced. "I guess that follows. You have been away from home for almost two weeks. It's understandable that she's out looking for you, and the school's a pretty good place to start. Now I suppose the headmistress will tell her where you are," she said, pressing her teeth against her lower lip.

Raven squeezed her eyes shut, and then silently shook her head. "She said she wouldn't," Raven answered quietly. "She said she'd only say that she had it on good authority that I was safe and well."

Amoretta brightened. "Well, that's good news, isn't it?" she wondered.

Raven nodded, sniffling, then continued. "But she says I ought to see my mother, to tell her what I've decided. She didn't say  _I had to_ , she just said 'that's what I suggest, chicken.'" Raven buried her face in her knees and hunkered down. When she was distressed, her grave, dramatic way of speaking fell away, and she seemed very much what she was: a frightened, confused teenaged girl.

"I'm guessing you don't want to do that?" Amoretta asked, tilting her head slightly to the side.

The ball of Raven shook, signaling a negative answer. From inside the veil of her dark hair, Amoretta heard a muffled, "I _don't._  I don't know what I've decided, anyway. It's not like I have any concrete plans for the future, none that she doesn't already know. I just know that I don't want what she wants for me.  _I want what I want_. But I really have no one and no where. I can't stay here forever, as much as I'd like to, as nice as that would be."

Grabiner looked over his shoulder sharply at that, and shot Amoretta a silent warning glance, but she imperiously waved him off, and then rolled her eyes in his general direction. He frowned and then turned his attention to the music stand again.

"You might not be able to stay here forever," Amoretta said comfortingly, putting her arm around the hunched over girl. "But you can stay here until we figure things out. I told you that, remember? I really meant it." She sat back thoughtfully. "Maybe what all this means is that you can't really go home again. If you and your mother can't agree, then you may not be able to go back again, even if you'd like to. It's hard to go back to someone else's rules once you've had a taste of setting your own for a change. I think parents sometimes have trouble accepting that their children grow up, but that doesn't stop them from growing up." She smiled wistfully. "As I understand it, part of growing up is leaving home, and most people do it eventually, some before others." She shrugged. "If you can't be yourself in your own home, then it's time to find a new home, where you  _can_ be yourself."

Abruptly, the rustling of the music stopped, and Amoretta turned to see that Grabiner had gotten to his feet, and was eyeing her thoughtfully, his hands in his pockets. He looked as if he was unsure of whether or not he should speak.

Amoretta gave him an encouraging smile and he frowned briefly, but then apparently decided to break his silence.

"Miss Darkstar," he said levelly, "Applying for emancipation is a weighty step, and certainly not one to be undertaken lightly. However, one thing is certain. It is your life, and it is therefore your decision. You may make a break with your family that cannot be mended," he said with a noncommittal shrug. "That may be the price you must pay for the life you wish to pursue. Life is a series of choices," he said, "Where we trade away some things and gain others. You must choose what you are willing to give up, and what you must on all counts keep. No one can make this choice, but you."

Amoretta gave him an approving nod, and Grabiner paused absently and then added, almost as if to himself, "You will never have all things, Miss Darkstar. Such is not permitted."

He seemed very distant for a single moment: quiet, reserved, and resigned. Amoretta bit her lip as she watched him, trying to read what he was feeling, but then he seemed to snap out of his reverie suddenly as his eyes focused on Raven Darkstar briefly. His gaze shifted to Amoretta and he gave her a silent eyeroll and then turned to look at the piano again.

On the sofa, Raven tentatively looked through the curtain of her hair. Amoretta was distracted from the nuances of Grabiner's changeable moods by more pressing circumstances. She shifted her attention to the solemn girl at her side.

"So you think I ought to go talk to her?" Raven asked, still sniffling uncertainly.

Amoretta gave her an awkward smile.

"I'm not really sure," she admitted. "It sort of depends on what you decide. You could try to make it up with her one last time, and warn her that you'll seek emancipation if she won't let you live the way you want."

Grabiner snorted and said, "In my experience it is not particularly productive to attempt to threaten one's parents."

Amoretta picked up one of the small pillows on the sofa and threw it at his back, scowling.

"I wasn't suggesting she threaten her mother, and you know that," she retorted.

"It certainly  _sounded_ like that's what you were suggesting," Grabiner disagreed dryly, turning to look at the pillow, which now lay on the floor at his feet.

"I'm suggesting that she honestly tell her mother what she intends to do," Amoretta said smartly, with a decisive nod. "It's completely within her rights."

"Whether it's within her rights or not, what you're suggesting is that she go up to her mother and say, 'mummy dearest,'" here Grabiner's imitation of Raven sounded more like a sugary fairy tale princess than any sort of gothic heroine, "'If you don't let me get my way, then I will do something to make you very, very sorry.'" He frowned before continuing, "You may be used to getting your way with your own father, Amoretta, but I promise you that as a negotiating tactic, ultimatums are usually not quite so successful. They wound both the pride and the confident moral authority of the parent. Parents do not enjoy submitting to their children. Given the option, they would usually rather devour their children than be ruled by them," he finished grimly.

Amoretta scowled at him.

"Raven's not doing this just to make her mother upset!" Amoretta stormed. "It's absurd to even imagine such a thing!"

"Absurd or not, I'm sure that's just what her mother is imagining," Grabiner cut in dryly.

"Raven just wants to be the person that she wants to be! That's not a crime. Raven's life belongs to her, not to her mother, and she ought to be able to do what she wants with it. It's not selfish of her to want to live according to her own dreams and wishes, no matter what her mother thinks of it. Parents may give their children life, but they don't  _own_ them. Don't be so morbid, Hieronymous," Amoretta complained. "However bad the situation is, I don't think Raven's mother has threatened to  _eat her_  or anything."

_That might have brightened Raven up,_  Amoretta reflected distractedly.

"You've missed the point," Grabiner said flatly. "Miss Darkstar ought to decide once and for all what she is willing to give up," he said, " _Before_  she goes to speak to her mother. She should not lay an ultimatum, which her mother is sure not to respect in any case, whatever lip service she may pay it. If Miss Darkstar threatens, then she will show her hand, and then her mother may undertake steps to counter her, if she thinks it necessary. An ultimatum will accomplish nothing. Perhaps it is even what her mother anticipates," he said with an idle wave. "Parents can be very difficult adversaries, as they generally never fight fairly. The girl must make her own choice, and then depend upon the fact that her mother will also choose to act. This may mean the end of the good feelings in her family, or it may not," Grabiner said negligently, as if the outcome were generally uninteresting to him. "That depends on the actions of all parties involved, not one alone."

Amoretta frowned and thought things over.

Beside her, Raven had curled into a ball again.

At that moment, William appeared from around the corner, carrying a mop bucket and scrub brush.

"Master," he said deferentially, bowing his head slightly. "I've finished scrubbing the floor in the workshop, and have replaced all the furniture as you directed. I also delivered the packages upstairs. They're in the witch's bedroom, and I informed Mr. Cord that they were ready to be unpacked."

"All right," Grabiner said dismissively. "You may as well start on the hallway, then. Remember," he said with a brief wave of his hand, " _Until it shines_."

"Hieronymous!" Amoretta interjected. "Tell me that you haven't had William scrubbing the workshop floor all morning. Is that why he wasn't at breakfast?" she asked, mildly mortified.

"The rat hasn't earned a spot at the table yet," Grabiner said idly. "Until he has, he'll take his meals alone. And yes,  _darling heart_ ," Grabiner's sneering pronunciation of the diminutive was so saccharine it made everyone in the room feel slightly ill, "That is exactly how I have engaged him this morning. I'm surprised you don't approve," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "After all, you were the one who was so keen on this arrangement."

" _Well_ ," Amoretta began, biting her lip, uncertain of whether she ought to intercede further on William's behalf.

"It's all right, Amoretta," he reassured her with a slightly beleaguered smile. "I knew what I was getting into."

" _Excuse me_ ," Grabiner interjected sharply, with a snap of his bootheel that caused both William and Amoretta to jump. "But you have been too familiar, rat. You are speaking to my wife and the lady of this house. To you, she is either 'Mistress,' or 'Madam.' Is that clear?"

William dropped to one knee and bowed his head again. "Yes, sir," he answered. "I'm sorry, sir."

"I believe I already told you my opinion on apologies, rat," Grabiner said dismissively.

"Yes, sir," William repeated himself. This was apparently all Grabiner had allowed that he could say without objection.

"Now, I think the hallway floor is in need of a thorough scrubbing," Grabiner said. "And I'm not particularly fond of repeating myself, however much my wife may enjoy listening to me talk."

"No sir," William agreed, picking up his bucket and brush again and making to retreat from the room. "Excuse me."

Amoretta got up off the sofa and scrambled to interpose herself between William and the welcome escape of the hallway.

She held up a slim hand.

"Hey William, I know you're super duper primo excited to get back to the  _intensely_  interesting task of scrubbing the hallway floor - the floor that already gets scrubbed three times a week by Tansy - but if you could spare me a teency-weency ounce of your time, I'd like your opinion on something," she said.

William halted, and looked with uncertainty toward Grabiner. He had his orders, but -

Grabiner rolled his eyes expressively and then flicked his wrist out in disgust.

"Very well. You have leave to satisfy my wife's curiosity," he said.

Amoretta pointedly stuck her tongue out at Grabiner, pulling an awful face. He made no verbal reply, but simply raised one finger silently in warning as he narrowed his eyes, and then regally turned his back on her. She rolled her eyes.

"William," she said, glancing sidelong at the ball of Raven on the sofa, "We've all been talking something over, and I'd like to know what you think about it."

William sat his mop bucket down and nodded once, his eyes flicking briefly toward Grabiner as if he was not entirely certain of his privileges when addressing his master's wife. "Yes, madam?" he asked deferentially.

Amoretta made another face and William wrinkled his nose in sympathy and then telegraphed his amused helplessness with his eyes. Grabiner still stood with his back to the both of them, so this minor rebellion went unnoticed and uncommented upon. With her own eye roll, Amoretta shrugged and then nodded, resigned and willing to accept this new bit of dumb show they were obliged to engage in for Grabiner's enjoyment.

"Raven's got a problem," she said, thinking about how best how to frame the silent girl's dilemma without giving too much private information away. Raven had not confided in William, after all. "She's trying to decide whether or not she should declare emancipation. What she wants for herself and what her mother wants for her aren't exactly the same thing, and it doesn't seem like she'll be able to work it out easily with her mother. Her mom's at school now, waiting to talk to her, and we're all talking about whether or not Raven should go see her."

William turned to look at Raven appraisingly. She had uncurled slightly, and her pale face was visible. She was holding off tears for now, but she looked ashen and strained, and deeply in need of counsel.

"One way or another," he said. "You're going to have to tell her what you think. It's better now than later. Putting it off will only make it harder."

And with that, he picked up his mop bucket, and with a dutiful nod he passed Amoretta and moved into the hallway, where he clearly planned to continue his duties.

* * *

 

In the end, Raven decided to go see her mother.

In the garden, Amoretta stopped her, taking her hand and giving it a friendly squeeze.

"Listen, Raven," she said. "Don't feel pressured to make a decision if you're not ready yet. I know we've all been giving you advice, but I want you to know, if you're not ready to decide yet, then you don't have to. You're not even seventeen yet. You have time to figure out what to do with yourself. You can tell your mom that for now, you're staying with friends, trying to sort things out. And if it helps you figure things out, then you ought to know that I'm sure Hieronymous will let you sit in on our lessons while you're here." She grinned when the other girl looked down through her dark lashes, clearly uncertain. "Trust me. He'll do it," Amoretta assured, totally confident in her read of the situation. "He'll probably grumble about it, but he'll do it. He's got a soft spot for people in trouble," she finished with a wink, then tilted her head to the side. "Really, tell her that you're all right, and being looked after. Tell her how you feel as honestly as you can. I think Hieronymous is right that you shouldn't give her an ultimatum," Amoretta winced slightly. "Sorry, I should have thought that through better. When you do decide, I mean  _really_   _decide_ , you can tell her. Until then, you can sort things out here, with us. Maybe together we can come up with a solution that you haven't thought of on your own, or maybe something as simple as distance will bring your mom around to your way of thinking. After all, sometimes it's time that opens doors," Amoretta shrugged. "It's worth a shot!"

Raven smiled then, and it was brief, but real.

"Thank you very much, Amoretta," she said haltingly. "I know I came unbidden, but my heart is touched to know that I am not necessarily unwanted. I do not wish to be burdensome for you and," she halted and hiccuped, "And, and, " At last she took a deep breath and steadied her tone again, "And your family."

"It's all right, really," Amoretta assured, then gave the pale, quiet girl a smile. "I'll go with you if you want," she offered seriously. "If you think that would help. Hieronymous can take us both by car, if you'd like. It's a bit of a walk, otherwise."

Raven shook her head.

"I'd really rather her not know I'm staying with you," Raven answered slowly. "I may tell her, but I may not, and if she sees you're with me, I'm sure she won't be long in figuring out my new address." Raven bit her lip. "Besides, this is something I have to do. She's my mother, after all. I need to face her myself."

Amoretta nodded. "I understand," she said. "And I believe in you! Now go out there and fight, tiger!" she said with a cheer. "And remember that when you're done, you have a place to come home to, no matter what."

Raven gave her another ghostly smile and then seemed to steel her nerve and went on her way.

* * *

 

As there was no class scheduled at Revane until the following week (depending on Grabiner's assessment of Amoretta's condition) Ellen Middleton found herself cut adrift. Like any other ordinary teenage girl experiencing an unexpected holiday from summer school, Ellen decided to use this windfall of free time to review and organize the notes she had taken in the time since she had come to study at the little school in the seaside cottage. She had engaged herself in her favorite carrel in the academy's library, holed up with a stack of books, her notes, and a bag of homemade cookies that Manuel had brought her that morning.

"After all," he'd said, tapping his temple with one finger as he flicked his ears to the sides of his head, "Sugar is good for your brain."

The small toad was another of the summer inmates of Iris Academy. He had stayed on to do an internship at The Glen during the holiday, and because of that he always seemed to have sweets to share with the other freshman students who had stayed on. Privately, Ellen thought he spent hours making them all treats during his free time, although the coyote boy insisted that he only ever brought extras and leftovers.

It was the way they took care of one another.

Ellen had been alone in the library for some time, diligently applying herself to her work, and occasionally munching on a cookie. At around eleven o'clock, another person had joined her: a bright, energetic-looking woman with short red hair, who was wearing yoga pants and cross trainers. She looked so thoroughly ordinary that Ellen imagined she was a visiting parent without really stopping to consider that at Iris Academy, visiting parents generally looked  _anything_ but ordinary. This interloper settled down on a sofa near the amply provided magazine rack and began to leaf through one of the periodicals.

For some time, the only noise in the library was the scratching of Ellen's pen and the whisper-flip of glossy pages.

Ellen was so engrossed in her work that she didn't realize that another person had entered the library until the woman on the sofa spoke up.

"Oh Ashley, it is good to see you," she said, discarding her magazine and moving forward to embrace the newcomer. "I've been so worried about you - "

The new arrival frowned and held up a hand to forestall the blissful reunion.

"Hyacinth," she said evenly. "I'm glad you're well."

The red-haired woman halted and frowned. "Ashley, you know I don't like being called that - "

"And you know that my name isn't 'Ashley,' mother," the girl said with an equal frown. "It's Raven."

"Ashley, please don't start that again," her mother said tiredly. "I've been all over everywhere looking for you these last few days and I'm very tired. Can't we just have a nice conversation for once, without having to be silly - "

"My name isn't silly, mother," Raven disagreed curtly.

"You know that's not how I meant it, honey," Hyacinth said placatingly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. It's just been a long couple of weeks. Please, just come sit down, and we'll talk."

"Honestly," Raven said, cool and aloof, "I would rather stand."

"Ashley, don't be difficult," Hyacinth said, "I didn't come here to fight with you, sweetheart. I came here to take you home. Your sisters and I have been worried sick since we got your letter - "

"If you got my letter, then you know that I advised you not to concern yourself with my safety," Raven said.

"Sweetheart, of course I was going to worry," Hyacinth said, spreading her hands, "I'm your mother. You're a sixteen year old girl. You ran away from home - "

"I am also a witch," Raven said evenly. "And as such I am capable of looking after my own interests. You had no cause for alarm, mother. In the past, it was not uncommon for a girl of thirteen years to seek her own fortune. You needn't have worried."

"Ashley," Hyacinth said, putting her hands on her hips, "Now you're just being ridiculous. This isn't a fairy tale or one of your renaissance faire larp daydreams. You've had one year of schooling. You're not even half grown or half trained. The world is dangerous, Ashley. It is filled with very  _real_ dangers, with unscrupulous people who want to hurt you in very  _real_ ways, and you left no word of where you were going - "

"That is because I was not certain of my destination at the time," Raven answered stiffly. "But since I left home, I have had the good fortune of receiving a formal invitation to stay with friends. I have accepted this invitation, Hyacinth, and therefore I am afraid I am unable to attend Marigold Hill Girl's Camp this summer. I again ask that you not worry about me until I request assistance. My situation is comfortable and I will be well cared for. I even intend to seek supplemental education in the form of tutelage."

"Cindy," Hyacinth cut in, "If you won't call me 'mom,' at least call me Cindy," she said, rubbing her temples. "I still don't see why you're so hung up about going to camp, Ashley. It's a very nice camp, and I'm sure you'll make some nice friends there. You really do need to try and make some friends, Ashley," she said gently. "Nothing good comes from sitting around all day being gloomy. I won't let you spend your whole summer locked up in your room reading dusty old books, ignoring me and the girls and everybody else. You need to socialize with people your own age, Ashley-bug. You need to get out into the real world and make friends. I'm not asking you to change yourself, but you do need to try and be a little more outgoing - "

"I am not 'gloomy,'" Raven said with a frown. "And I  _do_ have friends - "

"The cat doesn't count - "

"I'm not talking about Archimedes - " Raven denied. "I have real, actual  _human_ friends," she insisted. "If I didn't, who then would I be staying with?" she demanded with a faint note of triumph.

Hyacinth looked mildly uncomfortable. "Ashley, I'm worried about you," she said. "I love you very much, honey. I just want you to come home where I know you're safe. If you come home, I promise we'll talk about camp - "

"No," Raven said, shaking her head so that her hair flurried. "No. I know what that means. It means we'll 'talk about it for a while' and then you'll tell me what you've decided. I'm not going home with you, Hyacinth. I have a safe place to stay, and that's where I'm staying. I'm sorry that it has to be this way, but it does."

"Ashley - "

" _That is not my name_ ," Raven spat out.

"Please calm down, honey," Hyacinth tried.

"This conversation is over," Raven said flatly. "I'm going," she swallowed hard. "I'm going  _home_. Not to  _your_ home. To  _my_ home. If you want to talk to me, you can address your letters to Iris Academy. The headmistress will see that I get them, I'm certain of it."

Then she turned on her heel.

"Ashley, please wait," Hyacinth said, beginning to cry.

"We're through talking," Raven said, without turning around.

And then without another word, Raven Darkstar left the library. Hyacinth sat down on the sofa and put her head in her hands.

Behind her shielding tower of books, Ellen could not escape the fact that the woman had begun crying. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but the confrontation between Raven and her mother had happened so suddenly that she hadn't known how to make her presence known. She was unsure of what to do and had just decided to remain completely still in hopes that Raven's mother would eventually leave and the awkward situation would pass on its own when she moved very slightly and her elbow bumped into the precariously stacked tower of books. They fell to the ground with a resounding crash, leaving Ellen red-faced and totally exposed.

Hyacinth looked up at the sudden commotion and her eyes locked with Ellen's. Then she hastily wiped the tears from her face and seemed to be trying to muster a friendly smile.

Cursing her awful timing, Ellen got nervously to her feet. There was no avoiding it now. She would have to talk and hope she didn't make an even bigger mess of things.

"Hello," she said awkwardly. "I'm Ellen Middleton. I've just finished my first year, so I'm one of your daughter's classmates. I'm sorry, Mrs. Darkstar. I really didn't mean to eavesdrop - "

A look of confusion passed across the older woman's face, and Ellen worried that she'd somehow said something inappropriate, but then she brightened suddenly, as if she'd understood something.

"Oh, my name isn't Darkstar," she laughed. "I forget sometimes that that's what Ashley tells people to call her. My name is Cindy Peabody. It's very nice to meet you," she said, rising to offer her hand.

Ellen shook it briefly, then asked in confusion, "Ashley? Her name isn't really Raven Darkstar?"

Hyacinth Peabody shrugged weakly. "I suppose it is, technically. A couple of years ago she managed a ritual to change her name and of course, she picked the absolute silliest thing she could think of," Cindy said with a sigh. "It made quite a stir at the school she was attending at the time, when she showed up one day demanding to be called 'Raven Darkstar.' It's no wonder they thought she was a little 'round the bend - I do mean that in the nicest possible way, you understand. She never had many friends, and she was often teased, and I'm afraid that just made things worse for her. Ashley has always made a target of herself," Hyacinth said with a frown. "I don't really know why, but she's determined to make things as hard as possible for herself. Her name is Ashley Jennifer Peabody. She's my baby girl. To me, she'll always be my little Ashley-bug. I just can't help it." She sniffled and pulled a tissue from her pocket to rub under her nose. "I'm sorry you had to see all that. I do love Ashley very much, you know? I'm just worried about her. It seems like all we do is fight, nowadays. I want it to be like it was, when she'd let me put her hair up for her, and we'd all go to the park together - " She broke off and looked away. "I'm sorry. You certainly don't want to hear all of this."

Ellen shook her head and moved to sit on the sofa across from Raven's mother.

"No, honestly," she said seriously. "I don't mind." She meant it, too. While at first it had been awkward and difficult, now Ellen could not help but feel sympathetic toward the pretty woman crying into a crumpled tissue over her moody daughter. "And really, I think you sound very reasonable. She ran away from home. Of course you're worried about her! You wouldn't be much of a mother if you weren't," Ellen said with a frown. "I know if I - " She broke off suddenly and shook her head. "Honestly, I can't believe she'd do something as dangerous as run off by herself. That's crazy - "

"It's not the first time she's done it either," Hyacinth said sadly, shaking her head. "Usually she just runs off to someone's house, and once they realize she's gone without permission, and that I'm worried about her, they'll call me up to come get her. It used to be embarrassing, but now I'm used to it, I guess. I've been hoping that maybe she'd just grow out of acting like this over time. Last year she ran off and was gone for a day and a half and no one knew where she was. The police found her sleeping in a tree on a playground and they brought her home. But this time - we checked all the regular places, you know, the places she used to go when she'd run off for a few hours - but there was nothing, and  _that letter_. It sounded so  _final_. Honestly, I've been  _worried sick_. I was worried she might have hurt herself, maybe on purpose, that she was somewhere where I couldn't help her. Ashley is, well," Hyacinth looked at the floor briefly, "She's very imaginative. And she can be very dramatic. And she isn't always very cheerful, so when I got that letter - "

"You thought that she might have done something extreme," Ellen finished, biting at her lip.

"I didn't have to wonder," Hyacinth said seriously. "She already  _had_ done something extreme: she'd run away from home. She couldn't have had very much money, and no one I knew had seen her. I had no idea where she was sleeping, or even if she'd had enough to eat. A pretty, sixteen year old girl completely on her own with no place to go - somebody might have done something to her, they might have killed her - "

Ellen nodded sympathetically and then did her best to comfort the distraught mother.

"Well, at least you know she's all right, now," she said. "She didn't seem hurt, and although I do think she was very rude to you, at least you know she's safe."

Hyacinth shook her head. "I knew she was safe as of twenty minutes ago. But I have no idea who she's staying with, or what their motives are for letting her stay. I have no idea how she's being treated, or what they'll let her do, what they may  _encourage_ her to do." She bowed her head slightly. "I don't mean to involve you in this, and I'm sorry for telling you so much, but there is something you need to understand about Ashley. I don't mean to speak badly of her. She's my daughter and I love her the most of anyone in the world, but I mentioned that she's imaginative - well, maybe delusional would be a better word. She's unhappy with the life I've given her, I guess, and so she's made up a new one to suit herself. She's created this great big dramatic story where she's a tragic, mistreated heiress destined for greatness, and I'm the horrible villain who wants to keep her from this made up destiny she's invented for herself. Really," she offered her hands palms up helplessly. "I'm not exaggerating. Just let her talk for a while, and I'm sure you'll get to hear all about 'the terrible curse of our family,' and a whole lot of other nonsense she's made up. There is no curse on the Peabodys, and she has a very nice home near Cambridge where she lives with me and her two sisters. This time she seems to have run away from home because I arranged for her to go to summer camp. If she had just  _told_ me that she didn't want to go, instead of running off - " She sighed. "But this isn't really about summer camp. Ashley spends all her time and energy focusing on things that she's made up because she doesn't want to look at the things that are in front of her. That's a problem, and I worry it's only going to get bigger and bigger if she refuses to acknowledge it."

Ellen shifted uncomfortably where she sat, suddenly uncertain. "Mrs. Peabody, you are, um," she paused awkwardly, unsure of how to politely ask, "Your family is, um, from the traditions - "

Hyacinth seemed puzzled for a moment but then smiled companionably. "Oh, yes. The Peabodys are witch folk and we always have been. It's not like I want Ashley to give up magic, or not be a witch. Of course that's the first thing you'd think of, being a wildseed." When Ellen couldn't keep the surprise from her face, Hyacinth winked at her. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. Don't worry about it! But there aren't any Middletons that I know of among the witchborn, and we all know one another, you know? We're always getting under one another's feet, and everyone remembers that embarrassing thing you did at your seventh birthday party. The witch world gets a little claustrophobic sometimes. It's good to see new faces."

Ellen flushed a little and nodded.

"I don't want Ashley to give up who she wants to be," Hyacinth said with a sad smile. "But eventually she'll have to face the fact that reality isn't what she'd like it to be, that the world isn't a fairy tale with a happily ever after. After school she'll have to get a job, and learn to drive, and go grocery shopping, and pay her own rent and bills. I don't know how to make her understand how important it is to learn how to do all of these things. She's in love with an ideal world that isn't real, where her  _destiny_ will conveniently solve all her problems. Being a witch doesn't make you the heroine of a romance novel. Magic is wonderful and interesting and of course, it's who we are, but it doesn't guarantee a life without troubles and hard work." Hyacinth rubbed her forehead tiredly, "Ashley wants to marry a nobleman, and rub shoulders with archwizards, and have people throw flowers at her feet. She's always talking about being swept away from the dull, everyday world into mystery and enchantment, but that simply doesn't happen, certainly not to sixteen year olds from Massachusetts - "

_It happened to one from New Hampshire,_  Ellen thought dazedly, but she wasn't sure how to explain all this to Raven's mother, so she remained silent. The course of Amoretta's life in the time Ellen had known her was so bizarre and unexpected, filled with the sort of action one might find in a dime novel, that Ellen was not sure she could have related it anyway. At the moment, her short, dizzy friend was the wife of a baron, married to her teacher who was the son of an archmage viscount, waited on by a doting magical butler, and living in a seaside cottage so lovely that it might have come from an impressionist painting. She sang songs to the flowers in her ever-blooming garden and had little birds that rode around on her shoulder. Ellen was fairly certain that the air around her sparkled and glimmered wherever she walked, rose petals drifted in the hollows of her footsteps, and that the sound of chimes and tubular bells accompanied her movement.

If a shaft of sunlight pierced through the clouds on an otherwise grim day, then that shaft would illuminate Amoretta, as surely as a spotlight cue in a theatrical production. Ellen had seen it happen.

But honestly, Hyacinth Peabody was right. Amoretta's life was so fantastical that it was beyond extraordinary. It was so perfect that if Ellen hadn't been an eyewitness to much of it that she would have been very willing to believe that it was purely fictional. It was understandable that Raven's mother was worried about her daughter's future. Not everyone could count on marrying a competent, independently wealthy adult with a private house and income.

_Nor should they want to_ , she thought resolutely to herself. Things had turned out well between Amoretta and Grabiner, but Ellen refused to wear rose-colored glasses. That they had turned out well was easily as miraculous as a schoolgirl marrying a baron in the first place. Her friend had a strange, personal magic beyond what they learned in school. She seemed to be able to grow flowers in salted earth.

But a schoolgirl becoming involved with a much older man with a reputation for being ill-tempered and unpleasant was not an event that Ellen would have described as a positive course for anyone's future, let alone a person as aloof and detached as the girl she had known as Raven Darkstar. Amoretta was an obvious exception, and as far as Ellen knew she hadn't arrived at school counting on marrying a rich, expatriate aristocrat who just happened to be moonlighting as a school instructor.

_If she did, she's even loonier than I thought,_  Ellen thought to herself, mentally rolling her eyes.

But that was unfair. While Amoretta was unorthodox and eccentric, she wasn't really  _loony_. Ellen couldn't always agree with her often reckless and yet remarkably resilient friend, but she did respect her. Amoretta was extremely capable and competent. She wouldn't pin all her hopes on the tail of a star that was nothing but a high flying airplane on a cross-country flight.

She had more self-respect, too. Amoretta's dreams were bigger than a convenient fairy tale happily-ever-after, Ellen knew it. Amoretta was strange, and unique, and brilliant, and she deserved the strange, unique, and brilliant future she was building for herself, because  _she was building it for herself_.

But Raven - Ashley? It was easy for Ellen to understand her now. She was like Virginia, waiting for something spectacular to happen so that her life could begin, lazy and uninterested in the hard work and dedication that nurturing one's talents demanded. She was the sort of person who made excuses for her own failures, blaming them on poor circumstances, or fate, or some sort of bizarre conspiracy, unwilling to take responsibility for herself and her own shortcomings. She was high strung and melodramatic, and didn't appreciate how lucky she was to have a safe, comfortable home and a family who loved her. She wanted fame and fortune and a free ride, an all expenses paid trip to the sort of vague happy ending that was only available at the end of a romantic comedy. It was all very childish and selfish, and she either couldn't see or didn't care how much she was hurting her own mother, who just wanted a safe, happy future for her daughter. What Raven wanted was to be loved and adored and pampered without having done anything to deserve it.

Ellen snapped back from her distracted reverie when she realized that Hyacinth was still talking to her.

"Thank you for listening, Ellen," she said kindly. "I really do appreciate it. You're staying here over the summer, aren't you? I don't suppose - " Her eyes dropped again. "I'm worried about Ashley. If I left you my address, do you think you might drop me a line every once in awhile, just to tell me she's all right? I know she's not staying at the school, but since she says she'll pick up her mail here, she must be staying somewhere nearby. I expect you'll see her more than I will, this summer." Her smile was sad, and tinged with regret.

Ellen nodded immediately. "Of course," she said. "I'd be happy to do that. And I really am sorry she's putting you through all this. You're being very understanding. I'm sure it's very hard on you."

"It hasn't been easy," Hyacinth admitted with a rueful shrug, "But what else can I do? She's my daughter. I can't  _not_ love her. I can't  _not_ worry about her. Loving their children, worrying about their children, it's just a thing that mothers do."

And at that, Ellen smiled and at last moved back to her carrel to pick up her scattered books.

* * *

 

Ellen was met at the familiar entry door to Revane's grounds by Amoretta Grabiner herself, who had one chicken on her shoulder, and another trailing behind her, cackling. Barred from classroom exercises, Amoretta had apparently not been forbidden other moderate activity. She was on vacation during her vacation, which is a somewhat more ordinary way to spend one's summer holiday than magic school and near death experiences.

"I'm going to clean out the cowshed in a bit," she volunteered cheerily. "William is going to help me set up a train loop and a model village on a table out there as soon as all the pieces come in. Isn't that exciting? I'd really like to set up a model of Iris Academy, but then I really would have to paint and customize a lot of miniatures myself. Still, it would be fun to route a train right through the quad. I could also put a little light-up carousel in front of Horse Hall. I think we deserve one, don't you?"

Ellen seemed to to be thinking something over, and so she didn't respond immediately. When she did respond, it was with a vague smile.

Amoretta's brows drew together and she briefly waved a hand in front of her friend's face. "Are you all right, Ellen?"

This startled Ellen and she nodded once, coming back to herself.

"Oh, I'm fine. Sorry. I studied all morning so I'm sure my head is still a jumble," Ellen said sheepishly.

"Well, if you like you can come sit with me while I tidy things in the cowshed," Amoretta said with a smile. "I know it's not terribly exciting, but that's what I was planning to do this afternoon. Don't feel like I'm drafting you into hard labor. I'd just enjoy the company."

Ellen shook her head. "I don't mind helping," she said, "But I do have a couple of questions for the professor. I don't want to fall behind in my studies just because we aren't officially in class this week."

Amoretta grimaced. "Sorry about that," she apologized. "If I hadn't gone and gotten ill we'd still be up to tricks as usual."

Ellen frowned. "You don't have to apologize," she said earnestly. "I wouldn't even have an opportunity to study here if you hadn't suggested to Professor Grabiner that he invite me in the first place. Anyway, I'm just glad you're okay."

Her eyes moved to Amoretta's shoulder. Some inky lines from the circles inscribed against her skin were just visible on her neck. The collar of her t-shirt was not high enough to cover them.

"I'm fine," Amoretta assured her. "Anyway, of course I wanted you to study with me. Through thick and thin, right?" she held up two fingers, crossed over one another. "You're doing the both of us a favor, really. Honestly, I dunno how much work we'd get done during class time if it were just the two of us. With you around, he insists I'm not quite so badly behaved," she laughed.

The color rose in Ellen's cheeks and she laughed awkwardly.

"I'll just, um, go see the professor now," she said, nodding as if to convince herself that her errand was valid and not just an excuse to get away from the uncomfortably frank observations of Amoretta Grabiner.

"Sure thing!" the smaller girl said with a grin. "I'll be out in the cowshed when you're finished. Oh, and check out how shiny the floors are when you go inside! I think Hieronymous may have William polishing them with forbidden magic or something. You can pretty much see your reflection. It's a little unsettling."

The two girls parted and Ellen headed up to the house, pausing for a moment among the nodding flowers of the chimerical garden. She breathed deeply, and the floral scent was calming, although she knew it was made of the stuff of dreams rather than the stuff of more ordinary matter.

This was a good place. This was a safe, comfortable place.

She was lucky to have it.

She was fortunate in her friendship with both the mistress and the master of the house.

It was not something she might have imagined for herself the summer previous: sitting alone in her room in the oppressive August heat and trying to read a favorite book for the fiftieth time, or swimming laps at the pool and listening to the laughter and shouts of friends and families who were engaged in games, races, or cookouts.

It wasn't as if it had been awful. It had just been lonely.

She thought back to the words Amoretta had spoken so passionately and honestly during the spring term.

_It isn't something I planned out. It isn't anything I expected, but maybe everything's like that. I'm happy because this is what I've chosen._

Ellen was happy, despite everything, despite everything that had been hard and ugly, despite a home she could never return to, and recognition that would never again flicker in the eyes of the person who had given birth to her. It was easier to be forgotten than to be despised, after all.

She was making her own place.

That would have to be good enough.

She went into the house.

And there on the sofa in front of the window sat Raven Darkstar, apparently engrossed in a novel. She was reading Jude the Obscure.

"I might have known," Ellen said with resignation. It made perfect sense. Where else might Raven Darkstar - Ashley Jennifer Peabody - have holded up but at Revane Cottage with the Grabiners. Now her comment about arranging summer tuition for herself made more sense.

_That means I'll have to put up with her in class,_  Ellen lamented silently.

When she spoke, Raven looked up, and tilted her head slightly to the side.

"Yes?" she asked. "May I help you, Miss Middleton? I believe that the professor is in his atelier, and the lady is out with her chickens, at the moment."

Ellen could not keep her lip from curling slightly. This upstart girl had been at Revane for a matter of hours and she was already acting like a permanent resident. Ellen pressed her teeth against her lower lip and struggled to remain civil.

"Yes, I know," she said. "I saw her. She let me in."

"Oh, I suppose she must have," Raven said idly, then as if Ellen didn't interest her particularly, her eyes dropped back to her book.

Ellen stared at her for a moment as if she didn't quite comprehend that she had been dismissed, but then she cleared her throat. She had quite a lot to say to the girl who called herself Raven Darkstar.

"Raven," she began, and the dark-haired girl looked up from her book again.

"Yes, Miss Middleton?" she asked, and Ellen could not help but think she sounded slightly  _bored_. "Do you need something?"

"I spoke to your mother this afternoon," Ellen said seriously, resolving to drive straight to the heart of the issue.

"Oh?" Raven asked blandly, and then her eyes dropped to her book again. "I'm sure you had a splendid conversation. Hyacinth loves to talk, particularly about things she doesn't understand and that are not her business."

"That's your  _mother_  you're talking about," Ellen objected, mortified.

"Yes, that is true," Raven answered absently. "Hyacinth did expel me from her womb some years ago."

"Do you have any idea how much you've worried her by acting the way that you're acting?" Ellen demanded, still incensed at Raven's flippant attitude.

"I have some idea, yes," Raven said with a shrug. "After all, she tells me in triplicate every time I try to talk things out with her. Honestly, I'm tired of hearing about it." Raven had still not looked up from her book. "I might be interested in listening if she ever said anything different, but it's always the same old refrain. I don't suppose she mentioned that she never listens to anything  _I_  have to say - "

"I can't believe that you're so conceited and self-absorbed that you can't understand how much you're hurting your own mother," Ellen said angrily. " _She_   _loves_   _you_. She's concerned for your welfare and your future and you've worried her sick, and all over something as stupid as going to summer camp. You ran away from home! That's enough to get you sent to juvenile hall, or  _worse_. She's been all over the countryside looking for you - "

"I never asked her to look for me," Raven said, cool and aloof. "I left a letter that made my intentions perfectly clear. I also told Hyacinth not to worry about me. I am more than capable of looking after myself."

"Which is why you're staying here, uninvited, with people who obviously don't want you, people who are only tolerating you because they're too responsible to throw you out on the street, where you would be  _completely_  homeless," Ellen cut in sharply.

"I was invited - " Raven defended, her cheeks flushing crimson. "I am here at Amoretta Grabiner's personal invitation."

"You were invited  _after_   _the_   _fact_ ," Ellen guessed, and knew she'd guessed right when Raven winced slightly. "Don't congratulate yourself on the fact that Amoretta likes you. You're not her bosom buddy, if that's what you've told yourself. As far as I can tell, she still likes  _Damien Ramsey_. She's too soft-hearted to realize that you're a selfish, spoiled  _fraud_. No one's hurting you at home. I met your mother and she's incredibly nice and understanding. Honestly, she has a lot more patience with you than I would. You just like to invent drama to make yourself feel important. You can't appreciate how lucky you are. You don't care at all about all the wonderful things you have: a mother who loves you, sisters who are worried about you, a nice home - "

"What do you know about my life?" Raven asked, throwing her hand out dismissively. "What do you know about how I feel about my mother, or how she feels about me? What do you know about spending years incarcerated in a school with a whole lot of lowbrow imbeciles who couldn't even have spelled the word 'culture' with the help of a dictionary? About people washing their hands after they accidentally touch you, or asking to be your friend, or telling you you're pretty as a  _joke_? Where the regular laugh is that you're a whore because you developed early, and since none of the other students will so much as look at you, you do favors for the janitors so you won't be disturbed when you spend all day crying in the bathroom? What do you know about going for help to someone who tells you it's  _your_   _fault_  when you're bullied, that if you only tried harder to fit in that people might  _actually_  like you. What do you know about having your dreams mocked and stepped on? You're imagining that my life has been a splendid, never-ending picnic - well,  _it_   _hasn't_. You cannot fathom the  _absolute_   _hell_   _and_   _misery_  that I have endured. I alone in my family seem to have realized what it is that we have lost. I am ridiculed for my interest in the past. I am ridiculed because I care about the family traditions. I remember who we  _were_ , and I am bound that I will wake the family legacy or die trying. I will be who I am meant to be, not the person that Hyacinth wants to make me into."

"You're being absolutely ridiculous and melodramatic. You come from a nice, middle class family. You've never known any real hardship or trouble, which is why you feel like you've got to make up problems for yourself to feel special. But let me tell you something," Ellen said fiercely, her eyes dangerously narrowed, "Some of us have  _real_  problems. You think you're so smart and sophisticated," Ellen said with a dismissive roll of her shoulder. "You're just sixteen, but you think you know better than somebody who's a lot older and more experienced than you are. You should listen to your mother. For one thing, she's not morbid and delusional - "

" - I am not morbid and delusional! And I am almost  _seventeen_ ," Raven cut in, but Ellen ignored her.

"As if it makes a difference. Your mother has your best interests at heart. Besides," Ellen said with a look of superior triumph, ready to unleash an assault that she was sure would guarantee unconditional surrender, "You live in your mother's house, so you should abide by her rules - "

"Which is why I no longer live in my mother's house," Raven said archly. "I refuse to be held hostage by outdated ideas of filial piety. Besides, I am quite loyal to my family line, and I respect and venerate my elders," Raven said with a sniff. "Just not my mother. I am her child, not her property. I owe her nothing. But you're just a wildseed, so what would you know about family traditions? It's not like you have any to keep yourself. It's no wonder you're on my mother's side. You don't know anything about anything," Raven finished dismissively.

"Someday you're going to wake up and realize how absolutely stupid you've been, or at least I sincerely hope you will. Has it occurred to you that your mother just wants you to be safe - " Ellen asked, furious.

"She wants me to be ordinary," Raven denied immediately. "And quite honestly, I'd rather be dead than ordinary," she shot back.

"I'm beginning to think that you're  _actually_  crazy," Ellen said incredulously, her teeth gritted together. "Not just run of the mill drama queen crazy, but genuine  _mental_   _institution_  crazy. Are you really saying you want to be  _dead_  - "

"I'd rather die than be a coward," Raven snapped, then frowned before continuing to speak. "My mother, Hyacinth, she's terrified of taking chances. She never pushes herself. She never dares. She never has. She's never wanted anything that's obscured beyond the far horizon. She has contented herself with small dreams, with mediocrity, and it terrifies her that I refuse to plod along after her like a tame animal. She's also angry, because she doesn't think anyone ought to succeed where she failed. My soul is written in poetry, and hers seems to be written like the ingredients list on the back of a can of discount ravioli," Raven grimaced in distaste, but then seemed to shake off her disgust. "But despite everything, I will make my own way. You're not an exceptional person, so you wouldn't understand," Raven retorted imperiously.

"You're just a stupid, selfish, melodramatic teenaged girl - " Ellen said.

"And you're a nosy know-it-all who butts into other people's business without invitation," Raven said venomously. "It's a wonder you have any friends left at all - "

"Well, at least I have friends," Ellen nearly shrieked. "Other than my cat - "

"Leave Archimedes out of this!"

"I can't understand why anyone bothers to  _tolerate_  you," Ellen hissed back. "You're a shallow, delusional snob who's insensitive and reckless. And you know what? You think you're so elegant and dark and ladylike? Well, you're not. You're not mysterious and enticing. You're a  _joke_. You're a  _delinquent_. You dress yourself like you're going to a cheap Halloween party, and that soul name you gave yourself? I'd be too embarrassed to let anybody call me that,  _ever_."

"You know, I was wrong. I suppose you are exceptional at  _one_  thing," Raven corrected herself, her eyes glittering. "Mediocrity. No one can surpass you when it comes to being average and unremarkable. It's like you're a winning bingo card of being common and ordinary. Ellen Middleton: the Ordinary and Mediocre."

"I may be average, but I work hard," Ellen shot back, tears stinging at her eyes. "I work as hard as I can, but you don't understand what it means to work for anything, do you Ashley?"

"Don't call me that!" Raven shrieked. "You have no right - "

"Ashley," Ellen spat out. "Ashley, Ashley,  _Ashley_.  _Ashley_   _Peabody_. You're about as dark and mysterious as a bowl of macaroni and cheese."

" _That_   _is_   _not_   _my_   _name_ ," Raven roared back, drawing her wand from her sleeve.

But Ellen hadn't spent more than a month at practical exercises under the eye of such a perfectionist as Hieronymous Grabiner to be beaten in a wand draw. An electrical spell was out of her mouth before she had time to think about it, and Raven Darkstar avoided being shocked only by throwing herself desperately to the floor. She rolled as she fell and struggled to get to her feet, so Ellen knew she hadn't given up the fight.

But before either girl could do anything further, there was the sharp retort of a booted foot against the stone floor. Grabiner had teleported into the space directly between them.

"Enough!" he said sharply, throwing his arm out. He cast his eyes down at the girl on the rug. "Miss Darkstar, I might remind you that you have been invited to stay at this house as a  _courtesy_. I know I did not explicitly state this before, but I would prefer if you refrained from attacking our other guests."

He turned to Ellen with a frown, "And honestly, Miss Middleton, I am disappointed. I had thought you more sensible than to draw your wand in such a circumstance. You are considerably more advanced than she is, and could have hurt her badly. To draw your wand without sufficient provocation is madness, and a very good way to get yourself killed."

"But she drew first - " Ellen protested, her cheeks hot.

"And you responded in kind, out of anger," he said shortly. "To defend yourself from an attack is one thing, but to respond with violence is another. Be careful who you draw on in the future, Miss Middleton, because you may find you do not escape so easily without injury." He glanced behind himself. "As it is, I believe you've fried the piano," he finished dryly. He crossed his arms over his chest as he looked at the both of them levelly. "I suggest you both cool your heads for a while. If we were at school, I'd give you both detention for a month, but as we are not at school, not even at  _my_  school, I will dispense with the pretense. I just ask that in the future, please try not to  _turn_   _my_   _sitting_   _room_   _into_   _a_   _fucking_   _dueling_   _arena_." His voice rang like thunder when he swore, and both the girls ducked their heads, ashamed. Feeling that he had gotten his point across, Grabiner let his tone drop again to a more normal level. "Now, young  _ladies_ ," he said the word icily, as if he found them more like wolverines than debutantes, "One of you should leave the room. I honestly do not care which, but you two obviously need to be separated for a while. Far be it from me to put either of you in the time out chair, being that you are both  _responsible_  and  _mature_  second year students now, but I will do just that if I find that I have no other alternative."

Ellen gritted her teeth and made ready to excuse herself, but before she could, Raven had gotten to her feet, one arm across her face, and stumbled toward the front door, hastily sobbing out an apology as she went.

As soon as she was gone, Grabiner appeared satisfied that the situation had been properly defused, and giving Ellen one last steady look of disapproval, he left to return to his workshop.

* * *

 

Amoretta was bellied up on top of an old wooden table in the cowshed, polishing it, when Raven dashed into the room, cast one fraught look at her, then threw herself down on a pile of clean straw and began sobbing noisily. More than anything else, Amoretta was  _confused_  by this turn of events. As far as she knew, Raven had come back from Iris Academy weary but triumphant, and had settled down in the great room to read, as a way of easing her nerves. Of course, there might have been something else - something the girl hadn't yet shared about her circumstances or her meeting with her mother. It was all a very tangled ball of yarn in Amoretta's opinion.

And so she tossed away the polishing cloth and went to go sit on the straw near Raven. The girl was still crying desperately, like a lost soul that cannot be comforted, no matter the measure of comforts offered.

"What's wrong?" she asked, hoping desperately for some easily remedied disaster like 'there's no more chocolate ripple ice cream in the freezer' or 'I spilled cherry soda on my favorite pajamas.'

" _I'm a horrible person,_ " Raven sobbed. " _Everyone hates me and I don't understand why."_

After this admission, muffled because it was delivered directly into the pile of straw, she collapsed back into shuddering sobs and seemed unable to give further account of herself or her troubles.

Well, that was considerably more difficult to sort out than just finding more chocolate ripple ice cream or employing some spot detergent. Like most of the troubles that turned up under her feet, it was a higher order problem, although surely not insoluble. Amoretta drew her knees up to her chest and settled into the straw, since it seemed like this would take some talking to get through.

"Raven," she said slowly, "You're not a horrible person, first thing. Second thing, not everybody hates you. I don't hate you, for starters," she pointed out.

"But you like  _everybody_ ," Raven cried pitifully into the straw. "Ellen says you still like Damien. Ellen says the only reason you like me is because you don't have enough sense  _not_   _to_."

_Ellen_. This was something to do with Ellen then. Amoretta contained a sigh. She'd thought there'd been something on the blonde witch's mind when she'd arrived at the door earlier, but Ellen had been strangely uncommunicative. Amoretta hadn't imagined that sending one of her friends into the house might cause another of them to run out crying, but here was Raven, apparently inconsolable. Amoretta didn't think the dark haired girl was putting on a show for her hostess's benefit either, despite the girl's considerable qualifications as a thespian. She seemed to honestly be in the depths of despair. Amoretta felt badly for her, because she was obviously hurting.

"I like lots of different people," Amoretta agreed with a half smile at the empty air. There was no one here to watch her smiling at nothing, and yet she did it anyway, as a comfort to herself. To trace the shape of something was to make it true. She let her hand drop to touch the top of Raven's dark head. It was hot from the sunshine streaming in through the open door. "And I like them all in different ways. I like people for themselves, Raven. I like you because you're you. How I feel about other people really doesn't come into it at all."

"But you don't even know me," Raven protested, beating her fists weakly against the straw. "If you did, if you knew what I was really like, then I'm sure you'd hate me the same way that everybody else does."

Amoretta kept calmly stroking Raven's hair. "It's true that I don't know you very well yet," she said with a nod. "But I'm getting to know you. Every time we talk, I'm getting to know you better. Right now I know that you're thoughtful and generous and very creative. I'm sure that there are lots and lots of other things that I'm going to find out about you as we get to know one another, but you ought to understand, I'm never going to find out something about you that'll make me not like you," Amoretta said with a shrug. "That's just the way  _I_  am. We all have things about ourselves that we don't like," she said soothingly. "You, me, everybody. I think we ought to learn to like those things about ourselves. They're  _us_ , right? It isn't very easy, but that's the idea, anyway. If I find out something about you that confuses me, then I need to try and understand it. But I won't ever hate you. That's just not something that I do."

Raven's terrible sobs had subsided somewhat and she rolled onto her back, her face red and blotchy, little bits of straw littering her hair.

"You know, my soul isn't really as dark as the yawning maw of Tartarus," she confessed, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath after her prolonged bout of crying.

"It's not?" Amoretta asked politely, trying not to stare pointedly at Raven's heaving bosom. It was very hard not to stare, although Amoretta was trying her best to stay focused on what Raven had to tell her.

"It's all pretend," Raven said with a weak laugh, throwing her wrist across her eyes as if she could no longer bear the sight of the world. She could certainly no longer bear the sight of herself. "It's always been pretend. I had to practice being cool and aloof for  _so_   _long_  - " she sniffled loudly and then rubbed her hand across her nose. "When I was little, I was really loud. I was busy. I used to run around everywhere barefoot. During the summers at the big house - I mean Porphyrogene - I used to collect beetles and butterflies and all sorts of other little things like that, and I would make believe that I fought monsters that lived underneath the staircases with swords made of sticks from the garden. I talked  _constantly_. I talked to anyone who would listen to me. I used to roll myself down the hill for fun - not inside of anything, not a wagon or even an old tire. I would just roll down the hill in the grass for hours. I climbed trees. I fell out of trees. I was what you would call a tomboy. I had no structure, no discipline, no restraint. None of those things come naturally to me, I'm afraid. I had to learn them all, and it was very difficult."

"Why did you learn them, then?" Amoretta prompted, because Raven clearly had a story to tell.

"Grandfather," Raven answered immediately, and Amoretta could hear the warmth in her voice. Then she shook her head. "It wasn't as if he forced me. He made no demands on me. But you see, I loved all of grandfather's stories, all of his stories of the great magics, and of the times before. I wanted to learn what he had to teach me." Raven laughed and it was soft. "He was reluctant at first, as you might imagine, to agree to teach a wild little girl. He told me that it would be very hard," she shook her head again, and Amoretta could see the whisper of a smile on her mouth as she continued. "But he never told me it was impossible. He never told me that I couldn't, or that I shouldn't try, and so I tried. That was what it took, in the beginning, to make a wild girl settle. I wanted to learn. I wanted to see into the past that grandfather carried with him. I wanted to go into the night and not be afraid of it. I wanted to learn what the shadows had to say, and how to whisper into the darkness."

Raven sat up at last, and the straw stuck wildly out of her hair. She looked somber and pensive.

"You see, to learn what grandfather had to teach me, I had to have balance. I also needed a cool temper and a great deal of patience. I started learning those things when I was six years old. I studied with grandfather whenever mother would let me. When I was little, mother didn't mind it," Raven shrugged. "I think she was just glad grandfather and I got along so well. He doesn't always get on so well with Hyacinth, you see," she said with weak smile. "That's mother's name. She hates it. Prefers to be called 'Cindy,' although I cannot fathom why." Raven shook her head. "Grandfather was very kind to me, but strict. I think he understood that he had to be, to teach me what he had to teach. I studied with him until a little before my eleventh birthday. That was when the house was finally shut up and he went to live in Reverie. By that point I had learned enough to direct my own studies, although he did continue to give suggestions as to what I ought to read next through his letters. He left a lot of valuable books in my care when he closed up the house. I brought the most precious ones with me, because I couldn't bear to leave them behind, but I'm afraid the rest are in Hyacinth's custody at the moment."

Raven sighed loudly and looked down at the floor of the cowshed. "I suppose you know at this point, but I'm not very good at making friends." Then she shook her head and covered her face with her hands. "That's not true," she admitted. "And I know it better than anyone. The truth is, I'm absolutely  _terrible_  at making friends. I don't have any friends at all, outside of my cat," she sniffled. "And you," she added in a small voice. "If you're willing to be counted as such."

Amoretta put her arm around Raven's shoulders.

"Of course I'm your friend," she assured the other girl, then she tilted her head to the side. "Are you sure you don't have any other friends, though?" she asked curiously. "What about the other girls in Snake Hall? Barbara and Suki, what's-her-name, your roommate - "

"Maddie," Raven answered quietly. "And then there's Latoya. No, I don't have any friends among the Snakes. Honestly, Barbara is my sworn enemy, and that's enough to make being in Snake Hall difficult for me."

This was the first Amoretta had heard about any sworn enemies among the first year students at Iris Academy, but considering Raven's delicate state of mind, Amoretta decided to pursue this line of questioning at a later date. "You mean not even Suki - "

"No one is friends with Suki," Raven pointed out tiredly. "Not even Barbara. Suki just  _is_. She spends most of her time talking to herself, or to trees, or rocks, or chests of drawers, or other things like that. No," she repeated. "Nobody."

This was news to Amoretta. Given how the Horses and Wolves generally hung together, she had assumed the other halls had a similar internal camaraderie. As a student council representative, she knew all of the freshman students, but she was certainly not an expert on their personal relationships. She knew the Horses, Wolves, and Falcons best. She had some experience with the Butterflies and Toads, but very little with the Snakes. Suki was certainly eccentric, but Amoretta generally thought of her as friendly and easy to get along with, although she understood the strange girl had given her husband a few headaches during the course of freshman year. Amoretta didn't like to think of Raven sitting and eating her lunch all alone, day after day. She didn't want to imagine Suki as friendless.

"Not even in Drama Club?" she asked, biting her lip

This brought the ghost of a smile to the pale girl. "Perhaps," Raven said slowly, but then the smile was gone and she shook her head. "Only one or two of the seniors, and even then I was more like a mascot than a friend." She looked away before adding, "Besides, they've both graduated now and I may never see them again - or at least, I'm not likely to see either of them while I remain a student."

"What about friends from before you came to Iris Academy?" Amoretta wondered, tapping a fingertip absently against her cheek. "Anybody you write to, or go visit on holidays?"

Raven laughed at this, a brief, bitter laugh. "As for my previous school, I would be very surprised to find that they're not burning me in effigy as we speak," she said.

This caused Amoretta to laugh, rich and sweet.

"You know," she said. "It seems to me that we're a lot alike, you and me," Amoretta pointed out.

"How, exactly, have you come to that conclusion?" Raven asked incredulously, her brow wrinkling.

Amoretta shrugged helplessly. "Before I came to Iris Academy, I didn't have any friends either. Not any human friends, at least," she said with a wry smile. "I made really good friends with a lot of snakes and snails and lizards and squirrels and one three-legged skunk, but that's beside the point. And it's not that I didn't try, either," she said with an emphatic nod. "I really did try. I tried to be friendly. I tried to be honest and a good listener. I tried everything I could think of, really, but nothing ever worked. I was always by myself. I wondered if there was something wrong with me, something that rubbed people the wrong way, something they just couldn't like, no matter what," she said and smiled weakly, wrapping her own arms around herself. "It was lonely, you know? I tried to pretend like I wasn't bothered, that I really didn't mind being alone. I tried to pretend that I liked it, but the truth was, I was lonely. It was really hard." She squeezed her eyes shut and sat very still, thinking.

"What changed?" Raven wanted to know, rubbing at her nose as she sniffled.

Amoretta tilted her head to the side and her mouth wavered for a moment, uncertain, then she shook her head. "Nothing really," she said. "That's the funny thing. I've asked myself that over and over and over again. What changed? I certainly didn't - I mean, not really, not beyond how I'm always changing, day to day." She bit her lip. "I guess the thing that changed the most is - when I was little and everyone divided up on the playground to play, I was always leftover. So I always just played by myself. It's not like people were mean to me. They weren't. I always got along okay with everybody. But I wasn't anybody, really. It was like I didn't exist. I was just a name in a gradebook. It could have been any name, any girl, and it would have been just the same. I didn't matter to anyone." She shook her head. "And it happened, over and over again, for years and years and years. When I was away at private school I never even had any roommates. I was always in a single, even if everybody else was all paired up. I was always leftover, over and over again, until, I guess it just became something I expected. It's not like I was angry, or bitter, or anything. I was just sad. I was just lonely and sad." She closed her eyes briefly. "I was really excited to come to magic school," she said with a brief smile. "I thought, 'if there's any place where I won't be leftover - '" Amoretta trailed off thoughtfully.

"And you weren't leftover any more," Raven finished quietly, and Amoretta looked up, startled.

"I wasn't," Amoretta agreed, still puzzled. "It's strange," she said slowly. "After I got over my feelings of dread and terror that first day when I collided with Hieronymous, what I felt most was, well, this will probably sound silly," she laughed awkwardly, "What I felt was a sense of being where I needed to be in the universe. The first time we really talked together privately - all I could think was 'this is a person who understands me.' That was such a completely new feeling that I didn't know what to do at first. I stumbled around so awkwardly. I didn't know what to do or say. Everything I did was idiotic. It's like I had forgotten how to be human." She covered her face with her hands. "All I knew was, 'I want to talk to this person more. I want to talk to this person as much as possible. I have to do whatever is necessary so I can continue talking to this person.' I didn't have any great plans, really. I wasn't even any good at imagining romantic fantasies," she confessed with embarrassment. " I just wanted to talk to him. It was like he could understand me naturally, without thinking about it, no matter how strange or bizarre I was being. And it's not as if that made things easy or anything," she frowned. "Just because we could talk in the same language didn't mean that we agreed on anything. It didn't mean that he accepted anything. Things didn't fall into place painlessly. If anything, being with Hieronymous has been the most difficult, painful thing I have ever done in my entire life. It's difficult every day," she said with a grimace as her brows scrunched together. "But I am grateful for every moment of difficulty. Being alive is painful and glorious, and watching him has helped me understand that. What I found, when I met him, was a place to begin."

"Your story is very beautiful," Raven said with an inelegant sniffle. She still sounded a little nasal and stopped up from her crying jag and she squeaked in a very non-poetic way when she spoke. "I'm envious. I'm passionately envious of what you have, and I hate myself for it. I hate myself for being envious of you when you've been so kind to me. I'm horrible."

"I think what you're feeling now is really normal, so you shouldn't feel bad about your feelings, just try to understand them," Amoretta said thoughtfully. "I think some people struggle for years and years, maybe even their whole lives, without finding who they're meant to be. I'm really, really lucky that I stumbled on it so early. I'm really, really lucky that I crashed into Hieronymous - that he was there, at that moment in time, at that place. That's what a real miracle looks like, I think: that in this world full of countless iterations of events, we were able to meet one another. That is the nail the want of which would lose us the whole kingdom, maybe even the whole universe. That is true fortune, and much rarer than winning any lottery, I think."

She closed her eyes briefly, "Where I had been before, it's hard to explain. It wasn't that people had been horribly unkind to me in the past. It's not that I suffered constant slings and arrows every day of my life. It's not as if I hadn't been loved before I came here, even if that love was sometimes a distant love. I wouldn't say I had a terrible life. I was cared for. I was given all the things a child needs to live comfortably. But the truth is, I was used to being alone. I was used to being left over. I was used to being without self. I had just accepted that it would always be that way, that I would always be without, that I would always be alone, a person who could not be understood. Given the billions of people on this planet, some must be different enough that they will always be alone. I had accepted that I was one of those people. But I feel like, just being around Hieronymous, not romantically or anything, just  _near_  him, has helped me to be the person that I want to be. Maybe that's what changed: my context. It was like I was bunch of letters that didn't make sense on their own, but once we came close to one another, we became a word that could be read, not just by ourselves, but by other people too.

"I have a lot of amazing friends now," Amoretta said with a smile. "And they're all wonderful, and it's not like I don't think they like me for me. It's just that I think being around Hieronymous helps me to be  _me_. I'm not sure that makes sense."

Raven sighed and said, "People love you, and I can understand why they do. You have a funny sort of sweetness. You're a little too peppy and over eager for it to be strictly comfortable sometimes, but even then your zeal is within tolerable levels." She frowned and looked down at the straw. "You're childish, but people can't seem to get enough of it. Everyone knows you sleep with a stuffed bunny rabbit, and that you spent so much time outside sledding this winter that they named one of the snow drifts after you, and that the only person who plays more pranks and serves more detentions than you do is Donald Danson. Everybody knows that you like princesses and fairy tales and that you wear kitten underwear."

Amoretta went pink, but Raven was still staring hard at the straw with tears standing at the corners of her eyes.

"Everybody knows all of those things," she repeated, "And they love you. But me," she shook her head hard and covered her face with her hands. "Me. I like fairy tales. I like happy endings. I like princesses. I like to play pretend. I like my cat. I like to read. I like dolls and stuffed animals. I'd rather eat sweets than dinner. But people don't love me for those things. They  _hate_  me for those things. I just," she choked as she sobbed into her hands, "I just don't understand why. I just want  _a_   _chance_. I just want a chance to prove that I can be loved, that I'm  _worth_   _something_."

"Raven, Raven," Amoretta mildly panicked, throwing her arms around the stricken girl. "No one hates you."

" _Plenty of people hate me_ ," was Raven's vehement reply. "They've told me so." She ducked her head and the next part was quiet and difficult to hear. "Even when they don't tell me, I know. You can tell when you're hated. And the worst part, the absolute worst part, isn't even being hated. It's being  _dismissed_ , like you don't matter at all, like you're not even there. The worst part is when people don't care enough to hate you. They just think you're worthless. I'm always making a fool of myself, no matter how hard I try. I want to be strong and lovely and generous, but instead I'm weak and terrified. I don't want to be hated, but I don't, I don't understand, I don't know how to make it so that people don't hate me," she confessed, sounding exhausted and pitifully resigned, as if she had been fighting an impossible fight for ages, with no rest and no quarter.

Raven cried for a while into her hands while Amoretta hung onto her, petting her head and trying her best to comfort her.

"You know," she said, "You don't have to  _prove_  you're worth something. You  _are_ , just by  _being_. You don't have to prove that you deserve to live, or that you deserve to be loved. You deserve respect and kindness because you're a person. I know you're afraid that you can't be loved, but I know that you can be," she closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. "Anxiety, fear, you can't banish these things just by recognizing that they're illogical, I know that, but what you should try your best to understand is that you  _have_   _worth_. The wealth of yourself belongs to you, and that's a great treasure," Amoretta said seriously. "You are worth something. You deserve to live. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. All of those things are true."

At last Raven seemed to have cried herself out, so Amoretta gave her a squeeze.

"Do you know why I love you?" she asked.

Raven's whole body shook side to side, indicating a negative.

Amoretta smiled. "I love you because you like fairy tales and happy endings and princesses and playing pretend. I want to meet your cat and talk to you about the books you like, and if you want, Cotton-tail can send letters to your favorite stuffed animal the same way she writes to Mr. Hoppity. I also love you because you can be so grim and serious, and although your heart is as red as blood, it's also warm and gentle. I understand that you think about things very hard, and want to make sure you always do the very best you can. And let's be fair! You do have very fine manners. I think there's a lot you could teach me on that score. I respect that you have a lot of determination, and that you've already studied so much, with your grandpa and on your own. I think you're just right, Raven Darkstar," she insisted.

"The truth is, as people, we really can't control what other people think of us," Amoretta said with a shrug. "Some people will always dislike you, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try. Some of them may even hate you," she said with an awkward smile. "Not everybody likes me, for instance, no matter what you may think to the contrary. But if somebody really doesn't like you no matter what you do, that's on them, not on you. Now, that doesn't mean I think you're perfect, or that you don't make mistakes, or that you don't hurt other people. We all do. In fact, I make lots and lots of mistakes and I hurt other people all the time, even though I try my best not to. But I'm glad you're you, Raven. You're interesting and different and you're nice. I don't think you should try to be different than you are, because you're already exactly who you need to be." Amoretta shook her head. "I'm willing to bet that some of the people who don't like you just don't understand you. I mean, you can be a little spooky."

"That is on purpose," Raven said with another sniffle.

Amoretta laughed, crinkling her nose. "I know, I know," she said. "You can still be spooky. That's what we call personal flair. But we can work on the understanding part. As of now, you've officially got one friend: me. If you like fairy tales and happy endings then I've got a feeling that you believe in the power of friendship," Amoretta said, her mouth warming up with her signature crooked smile.

"I," Raven began haltingly, then she took a deep breath and steeled her nerve before finishing with warmth and relief, "I  _do_."

"Good," Amoretta said definitively. "That's a magic that I know how to work."

* * *

 

Meanwhile, in the great room of Revane Cottage, Ellen Middleton paced back and forth, muttering to herself.

She was angry at Raven and mortified by Professor Grabiner's reproach. Her peaceful sanctuary had been turned into an unholy battleground. She could not accept it. It was all awful and she hated everything, particularly herself.

She was so focused on contemplating Raven's misdeeds and her own vileness that she didn't notice when someone quietly came into the room. There was the soft sound of a throat being cleared and she whirled around to look over her shoulder and then froze, like a prowler caught in the spread of a high beam flashlight. There was William Danson standing in the door to the hallway, watching her thoughtfully.

He was the last person she wanted to see with her face all red and blotchy from yelling and crying, the last person she wanted to see when she felt like milk stored in her vicinity would sour instantly, just from being close to her ugliness. She looked worse than she did ordinarily, which was quite an accomplishment, she thought. Trust William Danson to appear at the very moment a bucket of pig's blood had come crashing down on her head.

"What do you want?" she asked, and it came out sharper than she intended. She flushed, embarrassed that she had been rude to him, but then angry again because she was in no mood to be embarrassed. He had disturbed her, after all. She began to be resentful. Why did she always have to treat him with kid gloves? She wouldn't anymore. If he didn't like it, then he would have to get over it.

William raised an eyebrow and said, "I'm here because I'm worried about you."

"Well, I'm fine," she insisted forcefully. "Thank you for your concern." She delivered this last line not with pleasure or gratitude, but as if it were a threat.

"Ellen, what's wrong?" William asked quietly.

She shook her head. "Nothing," she insisted. "Aren't you supposed to be mopping or something?"

"I finished the hall," he said wryly. "Right now I'm waiting for further orders. But seriously Ellen, it's obvious that you're upset." He looked off blankly, into the distance of the empty fireplace. "I'd never heard you speak to someone that way before."

"So you were eavesdropping on my conversation with Raven?" Ellen demanded and William winced.

"It was hard not to hear what you were talking about," he admitted apologetically. "You were both yelling, and I was just around the corner, scrubbing the floor."

"If we were yelling, then it's because there was something worth yelling about," she insisted grimly and he gave her a pained smile.

"About Raven," William said hesitantly, "Don't you think you might be projecting a little?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ellen demanded, crossing her arms hard over her chest.

"I'm talking about the things that happened this year with your parents," he said patiently. "I know deciding on emancipation wasn't an easy choice - "

"That has absolutely nothing to do with this situation," Ellen said angrily, "Or are you suggesting that I behaved like Ashley Peabody?" she asked, and the chip was clearly visible on her shoulder.

William rolled his eyes. "Of course I'm not suggesting that, but you ought to know that it's very rude of you to call Raven 'Ashley,'" he said. "You may not have thought about it this way, but even if she hadn't managed the blood rites to permanently change her name, and she has, she still obviously wants to be called 'Raven,' and doesn't like being called 'Ashley.' It's really no wonder that she got upset at you."

"So you're saying all of this is my fault?" Ellen said sharply. "Probably because I'm just an ignorant wildseed who doesn't understand Witch World traditions."

"No, I'm not saying that," William said steadily. "It doesn't really have anything to do with the Witch World. It's just common courtesy. You wouldn't like it if someone repeatedly called you a name that you didn't like."

"You mean like 'Ellen Middleton, the Ordinary and Mediocre?'" Ellen snapped. "She was being too sensitive. After all, Ashley  _is_  her name - "

"No, it's not," William reminded, shaking his head. "She successfully changed it. When you call her 'Ashley' you're purposefully denying her identity as well as deliberately drawing attention to the fact that you choose to deny it. You're picking a fight every time you do it. And no, it wasn't nice of her to call you what she called you. But anyway, that's not the point - "

"I know it's not the point!" Ellen said with a savage frown, "I was trying to show her how disrespectful and rude she was being to her mother!"

"By being disrespectful and rude?" William asked bluntly.

"She was disrespectful and rude first!" Ellen said, stamping her foot. "She was so high and mighty when I came to talk to her, like she was already the queen of this house - "

"I actually overheard that part from the hall too," William volunteered sheepishly. "I don't think she sounded particularly rude. Even if I'm wrong and she did, it might have been just nerves. I'm not trying to make excuses for her, but it's worth thinking about. I think Raven had a pretty hard day today. She was pretty shaken up after confronting her mother."

"Well,  _I_ overheard that entire conversation, and she was horrible to her mother. She was so glib and dismissive, it was really shocking," Ellen said with authority. "What kind of person does that? I would never have said things like that to  _my_  mother - "

"You aren't Raven," William pointed out with another wry smile. "And your mother isn't Hyacinth Peabody. I wasn't there, so I can't comment on her behavior, but I'm just trying to point out that Raven is making her own way herself, and your own situation doesn't have much to do with it. She certainly didn't do what she did today, whatever it was, with the express purpose of making either you or her mother angry. I know you had a hard time with your own mother, but that doesn't have anything - "

"How dare you!" Ellen said lowly, and her voice had gone very cold. "How DARE you mention my mother? How dare you bring  _my_   _life_  into this?"

"Ellen, calm down," William said, raising his hands and stepping back a pace. "I understand where you're coming from - "

"You don't understand anything about me!" Ellen said, balling her hands into fists. "You never have! You always act like you know everything, but you don't know anything at all. And I know you don't really care anything about me, even though you pretend you do, because it's  _appropriate_  to pretend to care about someone who's so disgusting and pathetic. Well, don't use me to pat yourself on the back!" she shouted, shutting her eyes and gritting her teeth. "I bet you think I'm Ellen the Ordinary too. Miss Middleton the Marvelously Mediocre. Well, I'm sorry I'm not a spoiled, selfish egomaniac. I guess when you look like Miss November then you can always count on an enthusiastic defense from everybody on the planet, no matter how you behave."

William was silent for several seconds, his lips thin and pressed together. At last he sighed and tried to gather this thoughts.

"Ellen," he said reproachfully, "That's not why I'm trying to get you to think about this and you know it. I don't think of you as medicore. I think you're remarkable. You're dependable and hardworking, yes, but - "

"Dependable, hardworking, ugly, and average, with a  _great_   _personality_ ," Ellen cut in sarcastically, through her angry tears. "Thanks so very much. Those are all my  _favorite_  compliments."

"Ellen!" William said, taking a step toward her.

"Stay away from me!" she cried, throwing her arm out as if to protect herself. "I don't want you anywhere near me. I hate you! I hate you, William! You're the worst person I've ever met!"

With this violent declaration of eternal enmity, Ellen turned on her heel and dashed out of the house sobbing, slamming the front door as she went.

William let his arms drop to his sides helplessly and stared at the door for a solid minute, frowning. The door was mute, as doors often are. It had no advice to offer.

William's thoughts were interrupted by polite applause from the doorway at his back. He turned to find Grabiner lounging against the frame.

"Well, rat, I have to say, you handled that spectacularly," he said. "Congratulations on making a girl cry."

"You were listening, sir?" William asked tiredly.

"Yes," Grabiner answered dryly. "Considering that spells were thrown the last time an argument unfolded in my sitting room, I thought it best to be on hand to minimize property damage."

"It wasn't my intention to make her cry," William said, frowning.

"Well, you did a bang up job of it, at any rate," Grabiner said with a snort. "I am beginning to ken that you honestly have no idea how to deal with people. You can't talk reasonably to a person who's in a state like that, particularly when they're wallowing around in loathing and self-pity. You've got to give them a hard shock," he tapped one of his toes lightly against the ground for emphasis, "Even my Pollyanna of a wife employs that tactic from time to time." He paused as he thought about things, "She was right about you," he said with conviction. "You are a wreck."

"Yes, sir," William said mechanically. "Thank you, sir."

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself," Grabiner said sharply. "If you have time to moon aimlessly, then you have time to work. You aren't here because I felt lonely and requested the services of a professional companion."

William looked up at him blankly, then blinked once or twice and nodded.

"But I finished the hallway, sir," he pointed out.

"Then the alchemy cauldrons need scouring," Grabiner said, snapping his fingers.

William nodded again, then hesitantly looked back at the door through which Ellen Middleton had so recently made such a grand exit.

"Leave her alone," Grabiner advised levelly. "You couldn't comfort her now if you tried. Let it lie, for the moment. I imagine that what the girl needs presently are the services of a professional busybody," he said dryly. "Fortunately for her, there is one at large on the property at this moment."

"Yes, sir," William said with sincerity. "Thank you, sir. For the advice, I mean."

"Well," Grabiner said with a dismissive wave, as he turned to leave, "You're welcome."

* * *

 

Amoretta was thinking her conversation with Raven over very carefully as she headed back toward the house. She was loitering around one of the ever-blooming flower beds and pushing her thoughts around when she heard the front door slam and turned her head to find Ellen Middleton, face wet with tears, bearing down hard on her. Both the girls saw one another an instant too late to avert disaster. Amoretta knew that Ellen was going to crash into her, and then they were both going to hit the stone of the court behind them hard. Ellen windmilled her arms as she staggered forward, trying desperately to stop, but it was too late, and she knew it.

She hit Amoretta, and then the world went black.

It quite literally went black in a very disorienting fashion.

"Who turned out the sun?" Amoretta asked in confusion. "Wait, we're not outside in the garden any more," Amoretta said, groping around in the dark, "It doesn't feel like the outside, anyway. It doesn't  _sound_  like the outside either. I think I accidentally teleported us somewhere. Ellen, are you here?"

Amoretta was sitting on something warm and squishy, and she tentatively poked at it. She hoped she was somewhere relatively safe, and not inside a hodag's stomach or some place equally unforgiving.

"I'm here," answered Ellen weakly. "Could you please not touch me that way? It's not very - " She seemed to be struggling but at last she swallowed hard and the final word escaped her as a faint, dizzy, agonized whisper, " _Appropriate_."

"Ahh! I'm sorry!" Amoretta apologized as she realized the warm squishy thing she had been sitting on was Ellen herself. She didn't really want to entertain what part of Ellen she had been poking. It had certainly been impolite, even if it hadn't been unpleasant.

She jumped off Ellen as fast as she could and ended up cracking her skull hard against the ceiling. She fell back and saw dancing lights that were likely more indicative of a mild concussion than a visitation by fairies.

"Uuuurngh," she moaned, covering her head. "I think I knocked all my brains out."

While Amoretta was mournfully massaging the bump on her head, Ellen sensibly called up a witchlight, in hopes they might determine where they were. Painted stars, swirling violet clouds, a crescent moon, and lush, mysterious forests covered every surface of the very small room. It was a bit surreal. As Ellen took a moment to get her bearings, Amoretta left off rubbing her head long enough to recognize where they were.

"Oh," she said in relief, "It's just our bed. It's so dark because the doors are closed, hold on."

She industriously pushed one of the doors open and afternoon light flooded the cabinet bed.

"How did we get here?" Ellen wondered. The unusual circumstances of their arrival had driven her tears away, at least for the moment.

"I think I did it," Amoretta said guiltily, raising a hand in admission. "I sort of panicked when I realized we were both going to take a spill. I didn't want either of us to be hurt, so I guess I put us some place where hitting the ground wouldn't hurt so much. Apparently the only thing I could think of was the bed," she said sheepishly. "I know I'm not supposed to use teleportation magic right now, but it really was an accident. I guess I'll have to tell Hieronymous about it later." She paused for a moment and rubbed at her head again, and then something seemed to occur to her. "Oh right," she said as she began to spin up a rune circle, "I'm a witch. I forget that sometimes," she confided to Ellen as she worked a simple green spell to ease her self-inflicted injury.

"I didn't hear you casting a spell, before," Ellen said dubiously. "You couldn't have had time to say all three verses of teleport before I hit you anyway."

"I don't think you need all three verses," Amoretta noted absently as she relaxed into her own spell. "At least, not the way we learn them. You're right. I think it must have been something like a wild cast. I was panicked, you know. It's not like I thought it through carefully before I did it."

"When I'm panicked I usually shriek incoherently. I don't spontaneously cast complicated and dangerous magic spells," Ellen pointed out flatly.

"I'm sorry," Amoretta apologized sincerely. "I honestly didn't do it on purpose. I'm glad neither of us were hurt."

"Me too," said Ellen, then all at once the circumstances of their meeting came back to her and she looked away in shame and distress.

"Do you want to talk about why you were crying?" Amoretta asked.

"No," Ellen said sullenly. She did want to tell, because Amoretta was nothing if not a comfort to a heart in distress, but now that she'd been prompted, she felt the perverse desire to keep all her thoughts and feelings to herself, like a miser in a counting house.

"Well," Amoretta said slowly, "All right. But if you change your mind, you know I'm always willing to listen."

"It's Raven," Ellen blurted out mutinously, unable to contain her anger and frustration any longer. "And William. And everything."

"All right," Amoretta said, getting up and moving to sit on a nearby dressing stool, so she could see Ellen's face when Ellen chose to look at her. "Let's start with Raven. What happened? Did you two have some kind of a fight?" Amoretta had heard a little about it from Raven's perspective already, but that didn't tell her much about what Ellen thought about things.

"I was trying to talk to her about her mother," Ellen said. "I met her at the school today: Mrs. Peabody. But Raven was horrible. She was  _horrible_." Ellen looked guiltily at the ground. "I guess we argued, and then she got so mad that she pulled a wand on me." She paused. "I  _might_  have thrown a spell at her. But she drew first!" Ellen insisted. "And then Professor Grabiner came into the room and yelled at both of us, and Raven ran off. Then William came in and he was so condescending that I wanted to punch him."

Her lower lip was full and puckered as she pushed it forward. She was feeling aggressively sorry for herself. What she wanted most was to spear one of her enemies and roast them slowly over a fire.

Or eat a lot of chocolate.

Either would suffice. Both would be the best case scenario.

" _Did_  you punch him?" Amoretta wondered, her eyes widening. "That would have been - well, I'd have written about it my diary!" she exclaimed. "And I don't even have a diary! Not that I'm advocating violence, or anything," she rushed to clarify.

"No," Ellen said, her brows scrunching together. "I probably ought to have. Then he might have thought twice about telling me how wonderfully ordinary I am."

Amoretta burst out laughing unexpectedly. Ellen turned to her with a frown and Amoretta offered her hands up in surrender.

"I'm sorry that I'm not really sorry, but the truth is, I'm not really sorry," she admitted. "I laughed because that's so dumb that I was just  _really_  surprised. You're anything but ordinary, Ellen," she pointed out. "You're a witch, for one thing, and you're really smart, and interesting, and thoughtful, and pretty, and athletic,  _and_  you've got a great singing voice. You're basically good at everything: the total package."

"Ha ha ha," Ellen's faked laugh was slow, drawn out, and very stilted. She sounded very tired.

"I take that back," Amoretta said wryly, "You're good at everything except liking yourself."

"That's not funny, Amoretta," she said, balling her hands into fists and rubbing them hard against her lap. She felt like a terrible pressure had built up inside her. It was so tight that she felt like she was going to  _burst_. Everything was going to vomit out, all ugly and nasty, and she'd be left with nothing but her sad, empty skin: wrinkled and slick, like old fruit peelings that would squelch between her nothing-toes.

"Of course it's not," Amoretta agreed evenly. "But that doesn't mean it's not true."

Ellen sighed and then admitted glumly, "Professor Grabiner told me the same thing."

"Today?" Amoretta asked, honestly surprised.

"No," Ellen said, shaking her head slowly, "A little while ago." She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands and grunted. "Just because I've heard it more than once, doesn't make it any easier to listen to."

"I guess it's hard to accept: the idea that there might actually be a lot of really good things about you, that you have lots of things to be proud of." Amoretta tilted her head to the side thoughtfully. "You don't want it to be true, so you're really good at making up reasons why it  _can't_  be true. That's one problem with having really good analytical abilities." She shook her head. "But you know, your reasoning is flawed. You're starting with the result you want and working backward, reclassifying everything you come across to suit what you've already decided. That's confirmation bias. You're not working from fact. You're working from belief, and just sort of  _trusting_  that that belief is true and letting it guide what you think. It's like you joined a crazy cult, only the cult is all about thinking that you suck," Amoretta said, patting her back affectionately.

"That's so comforting," Ellen said, sounding anything but comforted.

"It's the truth," Amoretta said with a shrug. "My unbiased and professional opinion is that you're great. Learning to like yourself is a long, hard, complicated process, but it's something that every thoughtful, sensitive person fights with, I think. Some people have harder fights than others. You have a hard fight, but that doesn't mean that you won't win. You have to keep fighting. I believe in you, and I'll tell you how special you are no matter how many times you ask me, no matter how many times you need to hear it. I think eventually that you'll leave that weird cult you joined and come to your own new way of thinking. Maybe making believe you like yourself is the first step in making it true, like clapping for fairies, or wishing the velveteen rabbit real."

Ellen closed her eyes and slumped against the side of the cabinet bed.

"She takes everything for granted," she mumbled.

"Who takes everything for granted?" Amoretta asked softly, although she had a pretty good idea who Ellen might be talking about. Still, she didn't want to take anything for granted herself.

"Raven," Ellen said with a frown, opening her eyes to look at Amoretta again. "She's witchborn, really and truly witchborn, not wildseed, and she has a wonderful mother and sisters that love her, and do you know what she's really concerned with?  _Being_   _ordinary_. She said she'd rather die than be ordinary. She's spoiled and self-centered and melodramatic."

"Are you sure?" Amoretta asked, thoughtfully tapping her lip with her finger.

"What do you mean?" Ellen asked suspiciously.

"I'm asking you what you're basing your character analysis on," Amoretta said with a smile.

"Well, it's obvious!" Ellen retorted crossly.

"It's not obvious to me," Amoretta pointed out. "That's why I'm asking."

"Well, she's spoiled and self-centered. She doesn't care at all about the pain she's causing her mother," Ellen said.

"I think Raven loves her mother very much," Amoretta disagreed, shaking her head. "I think she loves her sisters. I'm sure they love her too, but none of them understand each other very well. That happens, sometimes. People can care for one another lots, but because they don't know how to care for one another properly they can cause a lot of trouble. Loving someone is different than knowing what to do with that love. Honestly, people can love each other  _pretty_   _badly_. That doesn't mean it's not love, even if it comes out in an ugly, hurtful way. People have very powerful, complicated emotions, and good intentions can still lead to bad outcomes."

"And she's obviously melodramatic," Ellen continued, pointedly disregarding Amoretta's interjection. "What kind of fear is 'being ordinary' anyway? It's  _ridiculous_."

"Maybe it's the fear of being forced to conform to societal expectations that you neither like nor understand, with no freedom to express the individuality of your self," Amoretta suggested. "Without regard for the damage it does to your person and without any positive outcomes other than keeping up appearances."

"Well, that was a pat answer," Ellen said, turning her back on her friend to stare at the paintings on the inside of the cabinet bed.

"I've been thinking about it all day," Amoretta said sheepishly, "Ever since Raven mentioned it to me. It's not something I had ever considered before, so I tried to reason it out and that's what I came up with."

"Of course  _you've_  never worried about being ordinary," Ellen said, and she seemed tired again.

"Well, no," Amoretta admitted. "I guess, if anything, I was worried about the opposite - about being so totally weird that I'd never be understood."

"I'm the queen of ordinary," Ellen spat out with a frown.

"No, you're not," Amoretta disagreed patiently.

"I think you're disqualified from deciding whether someone is ordinary or not," Ellen said, planting her hands on her hips. "I bet you can't name one person who we know that you think is ordinary," she challenged.

"I can't?" Amoretta admitted with a helpless shrug, "But then, we're witches who go to a secret magic school. I think 'ordinary' is just a thing that's made up, like a unicorn, only unicorns aren't made up because I've met one now," she finished in confusion.

"Well, I certainly don't feel remarkable," Ellen grumped.

"Of course you don't," Amoretta pointed out. "Because you're your own baseline."

"I feel  _horrible_ ," Ellen added with a challenge.

"Well, you're not," Amoretta said with another shrug. "It's okay to feel rotten every once in awhile," she said. "I think that's totally normal. It's okay to get upset. If you want to be upset right now, then you can be upset. That's allowed." She smiled. "But when you're all tired out from being angry and cross, it's okay to let those feelings go. You don't need to try to hold onto them. You can just wash them out of yourself, like they're a wild color of temporary hair dye."

"I've never dyed my hair before," Ellen said flatly.

"We should dye it bright purple," Amoretta suggested, filled with sudden inspiration. "I bet that would look  _completely_   _awesome_."

Ellen sensed that Amoretta was already making plans, so she bit her lip and said hesitantly, "I'll think about it."

"Good," Amoretta said with a decisive nod.

Then they both fell silent for a while as they wandered deep in their own thoughts.

"We tend to think of parents as the advocates of their children," Amoretta said after some time, tapping on her lip with a fingertip. "But that's not the whole picture, really. A parent can be the greatest protector that a child has, but a parent can also be a child's absolute worst enemy."

Ellen's brow scrunched up and she said, "What are you talking about?"

"It's part of our silly human brains. As children, we're hardwired to trust the adults in our lives. It's a basic survival mechanism," Amoretta explained. "And as a survival mechanism, it certainly works. An adult says 'junior, don't go play by the river, or crocodiles will eat you.' So junior doesn't get eaten by crocodiles. It's a success! Only now, we don't really have to worry so much about being eaten by crocodile as children. Because we have a highly developed society, we're safe from crocodiles, but there are other dangers to contend with."

"What do you mean?" Ellen asked, frowning.

"Well," Amoretta said thoughtfully, "Like this. I think children are fully prepared to destroy themselves, if they think it will get them parental love and approval, or if they think they need to do it to provide care and love for a parent. They will destroy themselves in order to remain inside the family unit, no matter how terrible the abuse or neglect, no matter how awful the circumstances. The percentage of children who will actually leave terrible situations behind if it means also leaving their parents is vanishingly small. Do you see what I'm saying? The very thing that helped us survive when the threat was crocodiles will make a child stay,  _of_   _their_   _own_   _choice_ , with a parent who may bring about their death in the worst case, and who in the best scenario is guaranteed to leave them with permanent scars. Nobody can wreck a kid quite like their parent."

"That's a really cynical way of looking at things," Ellen said, her frown deepening. "I'm surprised at you, Amoretta."

"I'm not being cynical," Amoretta answered, tapping her lip with her finger. "I'm trying to be rational. Parental caregivers have an outsized influence on the people that they care for, no matter their age. Think about it. The only other person who can exert that kind of influence is maybe a lover."

"I guess," Ellen said slowly, uncertain.

"Kids are resilient," Amoretta added, shrugging. "Human beings in general are resilient, but being hurt over and over again takes its toll, even on the most resilient people. I guess I'd say that I'm generally wary of moms and dads because everyone just takes for granted that they  _know_  what's best for their kids, that they  _want_  what's best for their kids, that they're capable of caring for their kids, and there's absolutely no guarantee that that's true."

"Loving their children is just something that mothers do!" Ellen blurted out, finding comfort in the words that Cindy Peabody had left her with.

"But Ellen," Amoretta interjected gently, laying her hand on the other girl's arm, "Loving their children  _isn't_  something that all mothers do. It would be nice if that were true, but it's certainly not. Not all parents are good parents. Some parents are neglectful, and others are abusive." She shook her head with a weak smile. "Some parents are both at the same time. I know you understand that. The fact that circumstance makes someone the caregiver of a child doesn't make them suited for it, or good at it."

"But Raven's mother is  _so_   _nice_  - " Ellen interrupted, clenching and unclenching her fists in agitation. "You didn't talk to her, so you don't know - "

"We're not talking about Raven's mother," Amoretta reminded her diplomatically. "We're talking about a hypothetical situation. We're talking about the  _possibility_  that a parent may not want or be able to provide what's best for their child."

Ellen grumbled, and Amoretta could see that she had set her jaw and had stubbornly decided to stay on her ship until she went down with it. She thought she was protecting something, that was the feeling that Amoretta got. Maybe the something she was protecting was herself.

"Besides, you are right that I didn't get a chance to talk to Raven's mother," Amoretta agreed, "But you only talked to her for a few minutes."

"So you don't think I had time to see what a terrible person she is?" Ellen demanded. She shook her head. "But you told me that Raven has been running away from home for years now, and that basically every witch in New England knows about it, which is why she had to come here. So you think all those people, every single person who packed Raven up and sent her back home, were blind too? They sent her back for abuse or neglect, or whatever else you're imagining Mrs. Peabody did to her?"

"Most people have a tendency to side with adults rather than children in such situations," Amoretta pointed out steadily. "Particularly when it involves teenagers. It's not really very surprising that people called her mother up and sent her home, because that's keeping the status quo. When abuse is happening, it's often very difficult for people outside the situation to recognize, unless they've been trained to do this and they have some emotional distance. People don't want to accept that someone they know, who seems so regular and ordinary and normal, is capable of something terrible. People only want to see abuse when they recognize the abuser as 'other,' as 'outsider.' Then it just reinforces the opinion that they already hold."

"So you're saying that you do think she's a monster!" Ellen cried in angry triumph. She clearly felt vindicated.

Amoretta sighed, and shrugged. "I'm saying that I don't have enough information to get a clear read on the situation. Raven came here because she needed a safe place. It doesn't really matter  _why_  she needed a safe place. We aren't going to turn her away. She's right. She is old enough to make her own decisions for the future. If I'm old enough to get married and make a binding blood oath, then she ought to be able to study what she wants." Amoretta frowned. "I think her situation is complicated. On the one hand, she really is unhappy at home, and not just because her mom wants her to go to summer camp. I get the feeling that camp is just sort of the last nail. I think it's a lot of things. I think there are forces pulling on Raven from all different directions. She's trying to discover who she wants to be. Maybe she just needs distance from her family right now. That doesn't mean the distance has to be permanent, although it might turn out to be. Those are all choices that aren't easy to make. She's doing her best, I think."

"But she's so young and stupid!" complained Ellen, and her distress was obvious on a brow that was as wrinkled and drawn as a raisin. "Every decision she's going to make is going to be a mistake! She's going to ruin her life!"

Amoretta laughed mildly and kicked her feet. "I think lives aren't quite as breakable as people make them out to be. That phrase is thrown around a lot: 'ruin your life,' but as far as I can tell, it mostly has to do with a person's own perceptions of success, with their own values. I mean, it wasn't too long ago that you told me that I'd ruined  _my_  life, and I'm pretty happy with it, all things considered." She shrugged philosophically and continued. "I'm sure Raven will make mistakes. She'll probably make plenty of mistakes, because we all do. Mistakes are always an opportunity to learn something about yourself or the world. And she ought to be free to make her own mistakes, however she wants to make them."

Ellen's distress had only heightened when Amoretta had casually reminded her of that other conversation they'd had in the spring, the one where they'd both been reduced to angry, frustrated tears. Then it had been as if they'd both been yelling and screaming at one another at the top of their lungs, each locked in her own soundproof box, with an impenetrable glass wall between them. There had been a lot of talking, but very little listening.

"She ought to listen to her mother!" Ellen yelled angrily, mashing her eyelids together fiercely, even as she felt the sting of tears. She was desperate because she knew she was fighting only from emotion at this point, and that Amoretta was slowly and calming closing a net around her. She could not escape. Her fear and anger were hard in her throat like a stone she could not swallow.

"Why?" Amoretta asked curiously.

"Because children ought to listen to their mothers!" Ellen shouted back.

"Why?" Amoretta asked again patiently.

"Because mothers know best!" she said, panting.

"But they don't, always," Amoretta pointed out. "Even in the best of circumstances, when someone loves you very much, they shouldn't be able to take the power of choice away from you, just because they have some sort of perceived authority." She raised a finger and quoted, "'When one sinks or swims with the sharks, then one ought to do so at one's own discretion.' P.P. told me that. It's good advice, I think. We all have to take responsibility for our own actions."

"She's too young," Ellen reiterated again, blinking back her furious tears. "She's too immature."

"There's never a good time to make a hard decision," Amoretta said, tilting her head. "Those decisions are always hard, and people are always in the process of growing up. If we waited until we were  _really_  ready to make a hard choice, we'd be in the grave before we did anything. People just  _do_. That's how we continue living. Nothing is simple. Everything is complicated. Some things that we do that make us happy as individuals, make other people unhappy. Living is conflict. We all have parts of ourselves that we cannot give away, that we  _should_   _never_  give away, even if that means hardship, or sadness, or loss, or hurting other people. We all do the best we can. That has to be good enough, because there is nothing else."

"Why do you always know everything?" Ellen asked, burying her face in her hands. She shuddered once or twice as spasms of impotence and frustration shook her body. She felt pathetic and utterly defeated. She felt as if she had died.

"Because I operate under the assumption that I don't know anything," Amoretta suggested with an easy smile, then shook her head. "It's all right that you're frustrated and angry, Ellen," she said peacefully, moving to sit next to her trembling friend. "You're angry because you care so much. You're worried about Raven because you care about her. You're worried about Raven's mom because you care. You can tell Raven what you think all day long, and you ought to, even if it's hard. Talking to one another is how we understand things, even when it's ugly, even when we have to fight. But one thing you've got to accept, Ellen, is that Raven has to make her own decisions."

"I hate it," Ellen declared angrily, still crying, and the it that she hated was large and ambiguous. She hated her inability to control her own emotions. She hated Amoretta's sincerity and her calm acceptance. She hated Raven's thoughtlessness. She hated having to share her safe place. She hated having lost her own mother, and she hated having relived that terrible experience through Raven. She hated William acting like he knew everything about her, and she hated Amoretta and Grabiner for actually knowing all about her. She hated herself: her ugly, common, ordinary self. She hated being with people. She hated being alone. She hated everything.

"I know," Amoretta said evenly, then put her arms around Ellen and laid her head against her back. "But it will pass."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter should be dropping in two week's time. It's already almost entirely written, except for a couple of bridges. I'm just doing the last edits on it.
> 
> I wrote this all as one chapter, but it was so enormous, I had to break it up.
> 
> As always, thank you for your patience, readers. I am currently going through a bout of depression, so it's pretty hard work to write and publish these, especially since they're never about easy subjects.
> 
> I can't wait until I get to a peaceful chapter, like the one with the picnic.


	11. There's Just So Much That Time Cannot Erase / So Stop Talking And Put Your Back Into It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has explicit content.

The next morning, Amoretta was sitting in her underwear on a dressing stool and staring thoughtfully out of her bedroom window. The weather at Revane was beautiful, as it always was, but even though she had just woken up from a long sleep, she still felt tired.

The previous day had been exhausting. Raven had cried, then Raven had cried again, then Ellen had cried. Everyone had needed comforting. Everyone had needed listening to, and she was starting her day feeling spent. She rubbed ruefully at her eyes, but that didn't do much to drive the tiredness away.

Tomorrow came, whether or not it was looked for, and each day had to be ridden as it appeared, without regard for how one felt about it.

She heard the bedroom door open behind her as Grabiner entered the room, fresh from his morning shower, and she straightened in her seat and turned around to give him her peppy morning smile.

"And what are you thinking about so early in the day to give you such a morning glory look?" he asked and at his question she was up on her feet like a toe-dancer.

Being with Grabiner gave her strength. It gave her energy when she had none. That alone made her giddy.

"I am thinking, Mr. Grabiner, about my new wardrobe," she confessed, spinning around on her toes. "This is my first official day of officially wearing official witches' robes, I mean, apart from school robes, but that's _different_." She had gathered up a mass of diaphanous ruffles and exhibited it to him by fluttering it daintily. She looked like a cheerleader with a pompon made of chiffon. "It is certainly different, because I never had to wear a crinoline with my school robes - "

Grabiner watched her as she moved, swinging her cascade of ruffles around in delight. She continued talking about some sort of nonsense that he only half-followed as she wriggled into her slip and petticoat.

"It's really thrilling, like I get to play dress up every day now. I felt like a princess when I was picking all of this stuff out, you know. Shoes and boots and stockings and gaiters and flashes and petticoats and pantalettes and cloaks and wraps and tippets and ribbons and scarves and tabards and surcoats and cottes and kirtles," she volunteered with a laugh. "I think there are seven hats in the wardrobe now. Seven hats that belong to _me_. Imagine. Seven! I mean, it's not as if I felt impoverished before, or anything, but seven hats makes me feel like an heiress or something. They're not all baseball caps either," she confided with a touch of superiority. "In fact, _none_ of them are baseball caps."

"Seven is a very respectable number to begin your collection of millinery," he said with a shrug as he buttoned his robes. "I imagine you'll have several dozen before you're done. Witches are very fond of hats."

"I had noticed," Amoretta said with a giggle, and then drew her robes out of the wardrobe. She approached Grabiner with a bit of embarrassment, her cheeks pink. "Do you think you could help me into them the first time? I want to make sure I learn to dress myself properly as a witch, but there are a lot of buttons and ribbons," she said, biting her lip. "I'm not really sure I can do them all up myself - or at least, I don't think I can do them all up _very_ _well_. Wizards sure love buttons and laces and buckles."

From the moment she had drawn the robes out of the wardrobe, his eyes had been fixed on them. They were simple but beautifully detailed, finished with little flourishes that he was certain would suit the winsome, girlish Amoretta. He had taken no real notice of what she had chosen when they had spent the afternoon at the tailor's in the Court of Figs. He had thought it better to allow her total freedom in choosing her wardrobe, so she would not feel compelled to please his taste over her own, and so this was his first time seeing what it was she had chosen for herself.

He had ceased breathing the moment she had held the robes up in front of herself and had been framed by the window, with the golden morning light behind her.

Amoretta, shyly holding her robe out toward him, dressed in a soft, lacy slip and petticoat, her feet bare on the wood floor underneath them, bit her lip.

When he stayed silent, his eyes fixed on her, she took an awkward step backward.

"It's all right," she said rapidly, wheeling on her heel. "I'm sure I can figure things out. It was silly to have asked. I'm sorry for bothering you - "

He came to himself suddenly and caught her arm as she turned.

"It wasn't silly to ask. I'm sorry," he apologized, his brows drawing together. "I'm sorry, I was just thinking of something else. These are your new robes?" he asked stupidly, because certainly, they were.

"Yes," she said with a smile as warm as the sunshine streaming in the window. She was clearly forcefully pushing her earlier uncertainty and embarrassment aside. "These are what I chose for everyday. Loy told me that for everyday, I ought to choose my signature color, since I'll be wearing them so often."

"And that's why you chose - " he trailed off and studied her seriously.

"Indigo," she answered, tilting her head to the side. "Bluer than blue is indigo. As deep as mystery. As deep as spirit. As deep as feeling. As deep as the deep blue sea. That's my signature color. Colors are important to witches in general, but they're especially important to Pentachromatics," she lectured, raising a finger authoritatively.

His mouth trembled, and he thought about saying something, but instead he retreated into safer territory.

"I thought your favorite color was _me_ ," he said provocatively.

"It is," she said, wrinkling her nose. "But I can't exactly wear robes the color of _you_ , can I? Besides, a signature color and a favorite color aren't the same thing. My favorite color is the color that makes me the happiest when I see it. That's you. My signature color is the color that I think best represents _me_." She had folded her hand over her heart and now gestured toward him. "For instance, I know your favorite color is indigo, but you don't go around wearing indigo all the time. You're always wearing shades of gray and red. Even your brown everyday robes are in the red part of the spectrum, and your fancy robes are a fast red like a ferrari," she made a zooming motion with one of her hands. "They're lovably ostentatious. That suits somebody specialized with fire, I guess. You're always the color of shadows until you _turn_ _on_ ," she snapped her fingers for emphasis. "Then you shine like flames eating up lithium."

He didn't respond to her teasing in a familiar way, with a sly remark or a pop of his grimoire. Instead, he looked down at the floor and seemed bound to testify, if only to prove his own guilt.

He swallowed back the tightness in his throat.

This was a hard morning. This was the hardest morning.

"Amoretta, the reason that indigo is my favorite color - " he began with difficulty.

She turned suddenly, so that she faced the sunny window and gave him her back.

"I know it's not because of me," she said cheerfully. "I know I'm not the Indigo Witch, the one they called the Peerless. I didn't understand anything about that when I wore that dress to the May Day ball, but I understand a little now, and I hope you won't hold it against me. I had a really wonderful time that night. Wearing that dress, with white flowers in my hair, I could honestly believe that you thought I was beautiful. I don't really - " she faltered and seemed to be really struggling, "That's something I have a hard time imagining, most of the time. I was so happy. I hope you can forgive me if my happiness hurt you. I didn't understand it then, and maybe I still don't understand things, but I am _trying_."

She wrapped her arms tightly around the robes that she held to her chest. "I wondered, when I looked over all these things once they'd been unpacked in the wardrobe, whether or not it was right for me to wear what I had chosen for myself in pleasure and ignorance. I wasn't thinking about her when I picked my things out. I hadn't connected it all up yet," she shook her head furiously. "I know ignorance is no excuse, but I really didn't know. I was thinking about _what I liked, and what I wanted_ ," she insisted.

"But even still, I'm not coming first, am I? I don't know if I have the right to choose freely. I know someone's been here before me. I know at least a little of what everyone thought of her - what they might think if they saw someone else wearing this color and standing next to you. I know I'll never be like she was, like a miracle wearing skin," she said, shaking her head again, sadly. "That's all right with me, though. I don't want to be anyone but myself. But I don't want to define myself in opposition to her, either, even if that's what people expect, even if that's what everyone demands. I know it's audacious. It's probably insensitive and disrespectful."

She bowed her head as she admitted, "I guess I must be really selfish, because even knowing all of that I decided that I _would_ wear these robes, whether it was right or not." She turned to look at him and there were tears standing in the corners of her eyes, even though she was smiling. She looked terribly brilliant at that moment, white hot, golden hot, with the sun streaming in behind her. She looked brilliant and fragile, like glass spun too thin that curls back lonesomely in the rising air. "I don't want to give up something that's mine, that's always been mine, because I'm _scared_. I don't want to be afraid of being myself. Indigo is my color," she said weakly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he said and he closed the distance between them and leaned down to wrap his arms around her. She was very small, as warm and dusty as a little bird, as if she were made of twigs, feathers, and motes of light. "Wear whatever color you like," he said gently into the top of her head. "You don't need my permission, Amoretta. Be who you are. That is who I love."

"I just didn't want you to think," she said, sniffling loudly, "I didn't want you to think I was trying to hurt you - "

"You couldn't," he soothed. "I know you well enough to know that sort of thought isn't in you. You're right. You shouldn't have to be afraid of being yourself," he said seriously. "I knew that you were difficult and complicated when I married you, and I told you not too long ago that I would follow you anywhere, even into perdition. The perdition where you wear a pile of indigo ruffles in not particularly fearsome," he said with a quiet chuckle. "It would be my pleasure to help you into your new robes," he said. "I'm sure you'll be lovely."

He dried her tears and found that once again she was very reluctant to give up his handkerchief even after she was no longer tearstreaked. She acted as if the square of linen had inherent totemic value because it had come from his pocket. He let her keep it and resigned himself to eventually acquiring more handkerchiefs.

It was easy to get her into the frothy georgette underdress: it simply floated down as if descending from heaven to a hallelujah chorus. The hitch was getting it properly secured. There were a number of buttons and ribbons, as she had noted, and it took quite a while to get them all done up properly.

"You'd think there'd be magic for this," she remarked as he tied another ornamental bow.

"There is," he answered shortly, the fullness of his attention focused on getting the little ribbons to sit correctly. "I'm certain Cord could get these done in an instant. But I have never taken the time to learn any spells meant for tying ribbons prettily."

"I'll have to learn them then," Amoretta said with a giggle and then he gave her a pinch on her backside as he finished off another bow. She squealed and then complained, "After all, we obviously can't do this every morning. You'd think everyday robes would be a bit more practical!"

"You're covered in ribbons because you wanted to be covered in ribbons," Grabiner noted dryly. "My everyday robes are do not suffer a glut of lace, ruffles, or ornamental bows."

"Maybe they ought to," Amoretta teased. "I'm sure your students would stand up and take notice!"

"And they'd pay so much attention to my new style of dress that they'd learn even less than they do now," he predicted. "Then they'd certainly get themselves killed during regular examinations."

"Then you'd better not be too daring, for safety's sake," Amoretta agreed with a smile. "We must all suffer for fashion, but let's hope we never suffer to the point that we put someone in the hospital."

"Yes," he said dryly, "Please don't make wardrobe suggestions for me with _criminal_ _intent_."

At last she was in her overdress and the final little bow was tied off and the last button buttoned. He took a step back to look at her.

Amoretta cast her eyes at the floor and the flush in her cheeks deepened as she stood there, uncertain and uncomfortable. She felt very small and vulnerable at that moment, awaiting his judgement.

"You're right," he said after a moment. "It is your color."

She smiled then and threw her arms around his waist and held him as tightly as she could.

"It's really all right?" she asked one more time, because she had to be sure.

He patted her head affectionately.

"It's really all right," he said with a quiet smile. "One color can mean a lot of things, and I'm certain that this one means you. As deep as mystery. As deep as feeling. As deep as grief. This has been your color since I met you, it's just that I hadn't noticed it until now."

"Other people might not like it," she said tentatively.

"Well, I don't give a damn what other people think," he reminded her. "Wear what you like, Amoretta. Wear what you want to wear. It's nobody's business what you wear so long as you don't get yourself arrested for indecent exposure."

"I would only indecently expose myself for a good cause!" she announced with zeal, and he had no difficulty believing her. He would certainly have to put his foot down if she got it in her head to arrange a calendar of student council pin ups for a sophomore year fundraiser.

He stood there for a moment looking at her, full of life and humor and ardor, and he was carried away briefly by a very tactile memory.

" _You know, Hiero, you have two choices," she had said as she had seized him by his tie, her crooked smile as wicked as sin and sunbathing. "We can do this my way, or the hard way." A moment passed and then she clarified. "Which is also my way."_

He looked down at his wife seriously, then took a very deep breath and tried to begin.

"Amoretta," he said slowly. "There's something I'd like to tell you - "

The chime for the outer door began to ring and Amoretta cocked her head curiously. Grabiner rolled his eyes.

"Of all the times. Another unwelcome visitor, I'm sure. As if we have any other kind. I will dispose of them as quickly as possible," he said dryly, answering the bell.

"It's Virginia Danson!" came an unexpected voice and Amoretta giggled into her hands. Certainly Virginia was high on the list of Grabiner's unwelcome visitors. It was a funny coincidence, her turning up the day after Raven had made her grand appearance. Now they certainly _would_ have a full house. If any other unexpected visitors dropped in, they would be forced to find repose on one of the sofas, which as Amoretta had learned, was simply _not_ _done_ in a witch house.

" _Better for them to sleep in the stable!"_ Tansy had insisted when she had asked, but Amoretta couldn't see the sense in that, particularly as they didn't have a stable, only a chicken coop and a cow shed.

"That's great!" chirped Amoretta. "What a surprise! And we've had a lot of surprises lately! You ought to have called and told us you were coming!" she teased. "Are you staying for long? I'll send for Ellen and we can have a slumber party tonight!"

Grabiner held up a hand to forestall her and said gravely, "She's not the only person at the door."

After a pause, another person spoke. Her voice was low and heavy and carried a great deal of authority. She sounded like a person who was used to being obeyed.

"Matilda Danson," she said. "I'm here to see my son."

"Very well," Grabiner said, and closed the connection.

Amoretta was confused.

"We're not going to let them in?" she wondered.

"No," Grabiner said flatly. "We're not. This is not about your little school friend coming over to play." He stopped and looked at her seriously. "On no account should you allow that woman, Virginia Danson's mother, into this house. I am certain that she is here to retrieve her son, and will no doubt employ any means necessary to this end. I will send her away. This will likely be an ugly altercation, so it would probably be best if you remained in the house. As my wife, it is your prerogative to accompany me, if you wish, although I warn you, this will not be pleasant." A pale flush rose in his cheeks as he looked away from her. "It is your right to stand beside me in matters that concern our household, if you choose to do so. I had not intended that this responsibility fall on your shoulders until later, after you had had more time to become acquainted with acting as an adult witch, but I will not try to hold you back from the rights and responsibilities which are yours and yours alone."

Amoretta had gone very pale and she latched onto Grabiner's sleeve. "You're not preparing to fight Virginia's mom, are you?" she asked in alarm. "Because I think that would be really, _really_ bad for a number of reasons, a number of reasons so big that I'm currently having trouble putting them into an ordered list."

Grabiner laughed and was clearly amused at her agitation.

But his laugh was a hard sound, not an easy one. He was not looking forward to what lay ahead.

"It won't escalate to a duel, I assure you," he said with a brief smile for her comfort. "If I had any fear that it might I wouldn't go out to meet them. We're both civilized individuals and there are the Codes of Conduct. What it is likely to be is a Very Ugly Conversation." He pronounced each word precisely, so that she had no difficulty hearing the implied capital letters that indicated exactly how ugly he thought the conversation might be. He grimaced before admitting, "I have gained the enmity of Matilda Danson by taking her son as an apprentice. She has no reason to think well of me."

"But why would that make her so angry?" Amoretta asked in confusion. "Is it because he might give up that position in the city?"

"That's only part of it," Grabiner said seriously. "As for the rest, I am not keen on suggesting the reasons, but I'm sure you will discover them on your own should you accompany me."

"Wouldn't it be easier if William just talked to her himself?" Amoretta asked, biting her lip.

Grabiner shook his head. "He is under my roof and under my protection," he said. "If he wishes to leave the grounds of Revane and speak with his mother later, then that is entirely up to him, but I will not allow that woman to bring discord and ill will into our house."

"I'm sorry, Hieronymous," Amoretta apologized, wringing her hands as she did a little hopdance of distress. When Amoretta was particularly distressed, she often jigged in a very inspired way. It was both heartwarming, and idiotic. "When I asked you to take William as an apprentice I had no idea anything like this would happen," she lamented.

"I know you didn't," Grabiner said softly, and then let his hand come to rest gently on her head. When he touched her, her embarrassing dance came to a gradual halt. He stroked her hair quietly for a moment, and she leaned into his hand. At last, he asked, "Will you come to the gate, or will you wait inside? I will understand if you are not ready to face this. It is much to ask."

Amoretta planted her hands on her hips.

"Of course I'm coming with you!" she said indignantly, and he chuckled.

"That's my girl," he said with evident relief, and tweaked her nose. When she reached up to cover it in protection he slipped one of his arms around her waist and the next thing she knew they were down in the courtyard as his teleportation rippled away.

William Danson was standing several feet from the door to the outside world and staring at it intently, his face unreadable.

Amoretta watched Grabiner look steadily at his trial apprentice for a moment, then his voice cut the air, dry and authoritative.

"You should be in the workshop, rat," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "It's not your privilege to eat at the main table yet, so it's certainly not your right to receive guests. Go and polish my boots or something."

"Sir," William began with a mixture of relief and concern, but Grabiner waved him off again.

"I knew this was coming," he said, then threw his thumb over his shoulder. "For now, get into the house and do whatever it is that you expect an apprentice ought to do. I don't require your gratitude for acting as my responsibilities dictate."

Amoretta pressed her teeth against her lower lip, and wished she could say something to William to soften Grabiner's words, as this was obviously a difficult moment for him, but she was rewarded by his spare smile, pale and tired.

"Thank you, master," he said, touching the top of his head deferentially. "Mistress." As he passed Amoretta, he whispered, "Good luck."

Then he was gone into the house.

At the door on the edge of Vermont, Grabiner put his arm around Amoretta's waist again.

"You still aren't used to throughways yet," he reminded her.

Then he took her through the door and sat her down on her bare feet in the wooded clearing. She hadn't put on her shoes yet, and Grabiner hadn't waited for her to find them, but the ground was warm in the clearing, and having her bare feet on the plain earth grounded and steadied her. It was the first time she had crossed Revane's threshold since Grabiner had carried her over it in early May. Now June was long in the tooth and July almost upon them. The world kept turning and time was not something that could be held still. The familiar earth felt good under her feet.

As she blinked in the morning sunlight, she found herself accosted.

Virginia wrapped her in a bear hug and lifted her off her feet almost as soon as Grabiner released her, giving her little time to admire the scenery or assess the situation.

"Hey nerd!" she greeted enthusiastically. "How many detentions have you served so far, huh? I bet about one trillion. That's your own fault though. You got married to detention, which was not the brightest idea. I totally warned you!"

This was not the greeting Amoretta had expected, given Grabiner's grave warning. Virginia hugged her in ursine fashion, then seemed to be thinking about affectionately suplexing her, or maybe cartwheeling to express her emotions, and Amoretta was swept away by Virginia's uncomplicated pleasure. Then she turned to look at her husband, and even as Virginia bestowed a bunch of noogies on the crown of her head, Amoretta realized that he was tense and still, staring hard at the other individual in the clearing.

Matilda Danson was a formidable looking woman who gave the impression that she could batter down a door with either her shoulder, or that failing, pure, concentrated willpower. She was broad and solidly built, with a hard square chin and silvery hair in a hundred little braids all pulled tightly into a bun at the top of her head. She looked more like a businesswoman than a witch in her dark maroon suit jacket and slacks, and her bootheels had gouged furrows into the soft earth of the clearing. There was a jetty baton like a nightstick hanging from a belt at her waist, and she seemed perfectly capable of wielding it to knock in the head of any individual of whom she did not wholly approve. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her black gloved fingers pressed tightly against her upper arm.

"I suppose you have some explanation for this rude reception, Mr. Grabiner?" she demanded, and it came as heavy as a punch from a boxer. "I can't say I'm used to being forced to wait in the parking circle."

"This is an unexpected pleasure, Mediator Danson," Grabiner said dryly. "I don't recall having requested your services."

"Mediator?" Amoretta whispered to Virginia, who had her in a friendly headlock.

"It's like a judge thingy," Virginia whispered back conspiratorially. "It's how people in the Free Nations settle disputes. If they can't agree, they call a mediator, and the mediator listens to all the sides and then gives them her verdict, which is binding. They have to do whatever she decides."

"Is she a magistrate then?" Amoretta asked in confusion.

"Of course not," Virginia whispered back furiously, giving her another noogie. "Like my mama would ever do something crummy like that. Mediators are well-respected members of local communities, not some chumps who get their authority from outside. They have to train a super long time before they qualify to settle disputes, and my mom is one of the best there is," Virginia finished proudly. "She is like, _really_ _bossy_ because of it though. Sorry."

Amoretta silently shook her head.

"I shouldn't have to tell you that I don't find your tone or your joke in the least bit amusing, Mr. Grabiner," Matilda Danson said and then closed her eyes briefly as if putting away her displeasure. "I am not here in my capacity as a mediator, although, as always, I witness, if nothing else. I will overlook this breach of protocol because I know you're not accustomed to receiving visitors. I must apologize for the fact that my son has taken advantage of your hospitality for days now, long past what is appropriate for a casual visit to a passing acquaintance. When I see him, I will certainly remind him of his manners and duty."

Amoretta was a little confused. Although she wouldn't have called William one of her best pals before he had come to stay at the cottage, he was the elder brother of two of her closest friends, so when she thought of him, she didn't chalk him up as a passing acquaintance.

"Feel free to remind him of whatever you like, whenever you have the pleasure of seeing him. I wouldn't dream of separating a parent from their child under ordinary circumstances," Grabiner said grimly, "But I am afraid I must contradict you. Your son is not here as a guest. I have engaged him as my apprentice. He is perfectly free to visit you on his own time at his leisure, but I am afraid that he has very little leisure time at the moment. I did warn him of this before I engaged him, Madam Danson."

"You _what_?" Her explosion was loud and angry and very at odds with her otherwise tightly controlled demeanor.

Based on Matilda Danson's reaction, Amoretta surmised that the information Grabiner delivered honestly came as a shock to her. This was a little unexpected. When William had laid his case before her, he had given her the impression that his parents had had some knowledge of his plans. How could they have disapproved of something they hadn't ever heard of? And then there was another surprise in how her husband was handling the situation. When he had announced William's apprenticeship to the open air of the clearing, he had made no mention of the fact that it was a _trial_ apprenticeship, instead acting as if William had already sworn himself into permanent servitude.

Grabiner hadn't even spared a glance in her direction to communicate his intentions, instead keeping his eyes heavily on Matilda Danson. But then, Amoretta reflected, he really didn't have to telegraph his thoughts. She was already getting a read on the situation. If Matilda Danson sussed out the fact that William had not formally sworn himself into Grabiner's service, then surely she would fight much harder to extract her son from their household. It was a little funny to see Grabiner so intent on keeping William where he was, when at first he had been so set on rejecting him.

 _That's just the way he is,_ Amoretta thought with affection.

Virginia squeezed her again and asked, "Is it true? Did Grabby really take William as an apprentice? That is way crazy! No wonder he hasn't come home."

"It's true," Amoretta whispered back. "William came here to see Hieronymous for that exact purpose. You guys didn't know?"

Virginia shook her head. "No way," she said. "He was supposed to go to some famous lady in the city, at some old, stuffy firm. That's been set up for a couple of years now, I think."

"Well, he didn't," Amoretta said weakly.

"No kidding," she whispered back sarcastically, then paused. "We all thought he had gone to visit the school one last time, for old time's sake. He said he had something he needed to be sure of before he went to the city and made his oath," she murmured thoughtfully. "But then he didn't come home or show up in the city when he was supposed to, and mom badgered Donald until he admitted that William wasn't at the school at all, that he was out here, and that he had been out here from the beginning."

" _Donald_ ," Amoretta groaned.

"Don't blame him," Virginia whispered, being uncharacteristically magnanimous regarding her middle brother. "Mama was pretty rough on him. Nobody says no to her for long. And I'm not gonna to say that they parted on the best terms, not that they've ever been on particularly good terms. Anyway, we'd have found out eventually."

"I guess that's true," Amoretta admitted quietly.

While they had been talking, Virginia's mother had apparently recovered from the shock of the news and was facing down Grabiner again.

"Mr. Grabiner, I don't know how this misunderstanding happened," she said in a conciliatory tone, "But I'm certain we can come to an agreement. After I speak to my son, I'm sure we can work out all the particulars to our mutual satisfaction."

"I don't believe there's been a misunderstanding, Madam Danson," Grabiner answered levelly. "I explained things plainly. Your son is my apprentice. He may visit you wherever you are lodged, if he chooses. I have no intention of allowing you into my home."

"I obviously don't intend to stay, Mr. Grabiner," she insisted in an equally level tone. "I won't infringe on your hospitality longer than necessary. After I see my son, I won't trouble you further, although I believe that Virginia would like to spend the evening visiting her little friend." Matilda Danson's eyes swept over to the two of them for the first time. She didn't smile, but she did give them a nod of acknowledgement.

 _Well_ , thought Amoretta, _This really hasn't been that terrible, so far. I guess the other shoe still hasn't dropped._

"Miss Danson may do as she pleases," Grabiner said dismissively, "Insofar as her will coincides with my wife's, which I believe it does, in this case." He shifted his own eyes toward them and Amoretta gave him a nod of agreement. Then he turned his attention back to Matilda Danson. "But my position is non-negotiable, Madam Danson. You will not gain entry here."

Matilda Danson's eyes narrowed slightly and she said, "Am I to understand that you are now barring your doors against me, Mr. Grabiner?"

"Madam Danson, my doors have been barred to you from the first," Grabiner said flatly. "If you wish to speak to your son, you will have to find another venue."

"You do realize, Mr. Grabiner, exactly who I am?" she asked heavily, "Exactly where you are, and with whom you are dealing?"

"I don't see how I could fail to, Madam Danson," he answered brusquely.

"You are not in England where you can depend upon the influence of the Laughing Skull to have your way," she reminded him sharply. "Nor are you on the grounds of the school where you can hide in the skirts of the archwitch."

"No, Madam Danson," Grabiner answered cooly. "I am before the door to my own home. You may bluff and bluster, but you have no standing here. You have no right to demand admittance, a point of which you must be aware."

"Very well, Mr. Grabiner," she said coldly. "I have given you every opportunity to resolve this dispute in a peaceful, honorable fashion, despite the fact that you have been unbelievably rude. I am no longer interested in observing rules of politeness that you apparently do not care to recall. I can't say I'm particularly surprised that you'd behave so disgracefully, given your reputation, but I had hoped to avoid brutalizing you in front of my daughter, who is, after all, one of your students."

"What a noble sentiment," Grabiner said, his words dry and acidic. "You are the soul of compassion."

"I'm the soul of _retribution_ ," Matilda Danson warned fiercely, "And you have drawn my ire. I had hoped not to make a target of you, pathetic, cowardly recluse that you are, but if you refuse to be reasonable, then I have no choice. If you think I'm going to let my son throw his future away playing squire to a hopeless crank with," her eyes darted toward Amoretta, who was still detained in her daughter's arms, "Questionable appetites and morbid tastes, then you're even more of a lunatic than people think, Mr. Grabiner. Either that, or the sorry escapades of your youth left you as a total imbecile. You will release my son from whatever oaths you have extracted from him."

"I will not," Grabiner responded immediately, his voice crisp. "And neither will I allow you into my home to browbeat him. If he chooses to see you on his own, that is his own affair, but you will not set foot in my house. The boy is of age to make his own decisions and he has made his choice. Frankly, madam, it is no longer any of your business."

"Forgive me if I don't celebrate the fact that he has taken you as a model for his life," Matilda Danson said coldly. "Married as a teenager, disowned by your family, responsible for the death of your wife: you're a disgraced, unstable alcoholic who would likely be homeless if Archwitch Potsdam didn't allow you to eke out a pitiful existence as a school teacher. She does this out of the mercy of her stupidly generous heart, despite the fact that you apparently have predatory tendencies."

"My predatory tendencies aside, as you see, I am not currently homeless," Grabiner said with a brief gesture to the door at his back. "As it is my home I am denying you access to. At least you won't have to worry about your son freezing to death this winter when I can't afford to buy coal for the pot bellied stove."

"I had heard you had crawled back into your father's good graces somehow, not that the association is a reputable one," she said darkly. "I see now that you're a drunk _and_ a hypocrite. What exactly did you do to gain his favor? Dangle the prospect of heirs in front of his face, or find another teenaged mistress for him? The one he's got is going to start showing her age soon, after all. And no one is better suited to job of finding a new mark for him than you are. Everyone says you have _similar_ _tastes,_ and looking at your new _companion_ I see that you have proved that is true _yet again_. Maybe you'll find twins for him this time - "

" _Madam_ \- " Grabiner interjected like a thunderbolt, but his fury was flash frozen as death seemed to sweep into the clearing with them. It was as if his heart had been yanked out of his body on a fishing line, and a familiar presence was suddenly overwhelming. Every ordinary sound of summer wildlife had stopped and the morning had become deathly still. The silence roared, and he could feel the blood pounding in his ears.

He was terrified, absolutely terrified.

Cold adrenaline poured into his veins. He could taste the bitterness of it riding on the back of his tongue. He was waiting for it. He was waiting for the sound that he knew was coming like a fatal gunshot.

Amoretta's voice was very quiet when she said, "Let me go."

Virginia let her out of her headlock almost mechanically, because the chilly, soft tone was so strange from the warm and infectious Amoretta that it demanded obedience. Everything felt incredibly surreal, as if the space had bent in on itself dozens of times, turning round and round, leaving them at the center of a spiral, a knot whose nexus was the navel of the world.

Amoretta crossed over the earth and leaves in the clearing and it was as if she left shimmering footprints behind herself, like a bather come up from a deep pool. These glimmered briefly, as bright and beautiful as frost on a window pane, then burned off, vanishing as if they had never been. Every step knit her to the earth, reminding her of where she was and who she was.

She had no hesitation.

Amoretta went to stand calmly near her husband, who was as still as if he had been struck by bolt from heaven, or had seen the face of a gorgon. She laid her fingers against his arm and then turned to look steadily at Matilda Danson.

"You will apologize for your audaciously rude accusations," Amoretta said.

"Excuse me?" demanded Matilda Danson, but it was clear that even she was somewhat unnerved.

Grabiner felt as if the temperature in the clearing had dropped several degrees, and was dropping yet lower.

A cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck, but he still found himself unable to move. He was completely paralyzed. It was as if the volition had been stripped from him wholly. He could not even roll his eyes down in their sockets to look at his wife, but he was fervently glad that he could not. He had a sick sort of certainty that looking at her in that singular moment would be a thing that could not be undone. He was terrified that seeing her would end his life, as sure as staring directly at the divine. The pressure she was exerting was unbearable. He felt as if the air would be forced from his lungs, as if he had been pressed hard against a wall, as if he were being ground, slowly, passionately, meticulously, into the dirt.

"You will apologize for your rude accusations," Amoretta repeated, "Or you will leave this place immediately. It's your choice."

"And if I don't?" Matilda Danson challenged, having recovered herself somewhat, "If I refuse? Who do you think you are, little girl, to stand before me and demand anything?"

"I am the lady of this house. My name is Marianne Amoretta Grabiner, and I demand nothing but decency and civility. You have come to the border of my kingdom, Madam Danson, and therefore you must abide by my rule," she answered with chilly certainty. "If you will not be civil and you refuse to leave, then we will withdraw, Madam Danson. There is little point in arguing with an unruly child." It seemed for a moment as if her misty breath was visible in the air as she spoke.

"You've got some nerve, little miss," sputtered Matilda Danson, and she seemed ready to say more, but she got in control of herself and closed her eyes briefly. "You are correct," she said slowly. "This is indeed your demesne. I was moved by my strong feelings for my son, and therefore was unnecessarily rude. You have my sincere apologies."

"Thank you, that will suffice," Amoretta said with a brief wave of her hand, negligent, casually dismissive, "I can neither demand nor expect sincerity." She seemed idly philosophical at that moment, remote and faintly _disdainful_ , but then her voice became firm and fell, "But you have been cruel, and I will not allow that to pass," she said, shaking her head. "I believe that you feel strongly for William, but I do not believe that you said what you did out of unthinking anger. I believe your actions were calculated, Madam Danson, for a particular effect. I think that you wished to provoke my husband into acting unwisely, acting out of anger. Even were you capable of drawing him out, and I do not believe that you are, you should understand by this point that I will not allow this to happen. If you expect to defy me and succeed, I am afraid you will find yourself disappointed. I understand that you feel strongly, but you will not be admitted to the house. I own this ground, and I will not allow you upon it."

"Is that the way this is going to be?" Matilda Danson asked gravely.

"It is," Amoretta answered with equal gravity.

"It is dangerous to make an enemy of me, young lady," Matilda Danson said lowly.

"I don't plan for you to be an enemy, Madam Danson," Amoretta answered, folding her hands behind her back. "This is one of the ways I make friends," she said.

All at once the terrible pressure in the clearing was gone and the eeriness passed. The sounds of birds and insects returned, the space unfolded, and the weird chilliness drifted off. Grabiner felt his heart return to his body, and his limbs lost their numbness. He slumped like a marionette with cut strings. He felt Amoretta put her arm supportively on his back and the dizziness passed and he steadied himself on his feet again.

"Don't think this is over, child," Matilda Danson said.

"Of course not," Amoretta said tranquilly, having lost her terrible edge.

It was ultimately resolved that Matilda Danson agreed to return to Iris Academy where she planned on spending the night, while Virginia Danson was permitted to stay at the cottage, ostensibly for the sleepover for which Amoretta was already keen. Matilda Danson spoke briefly to her daughter before leaving, and she apparently entertained ideas that Virginia was a kind of covert agent, with a mission of furthering the family fortunes in otherwise forbidden territory.

Unfortunately for Matilda Danson, her daughter had no greater ambitions than to see her favorite brother and enjoy herself at a sleepover, which was much as Amoretta had expected, given her experience with Virginia.

Back in the brilliant capsule world of Revane, Grabiner pulled Amoretta aside and studied her seriously.

"What was that?" he asked breathlessly. "Your presence was so brilliant it was _suffocating_."

"Don't you remember?" she said mildly. "I was _born_ a Suzerain. An empress rules without effort. Right of rule doesn't come from a crown, or a scepter, or a throne. It's part of a ruler's very nature. It cannot be taken from her. I didn't become an aristocrat through _marriage_ , Hieronymous. Anyway, If you thought that was scary, you should experience my father when he's angry."

"I did," he reminded her with a snort.

"Oh no, you didn't," she assured, "He liked you. If he hadn't - well. Let's just say that it turned out for the best that _he_ _did_."

 _I knew it,_ Grabiner mused, still dazed. _There might have been a very bloody firefight that would have quite wrecked the headmistress's pretty little picnic._ _I must be grateful for the tender mercy that I passed muster. Is there no end to the bizarre circumstances that surround this girl and her family?_

But after patting him warmly on the back, Amoretta had already moved off and was chatting excitedly with Virginia Danson, and Grabiner was left to watch her in wonder: the queen once arrayed in white hot stardust that had once again become a silly, funny little schoolgirl. At last he pulled his hat off and ran his hand through his hair.

 _Pair dadeni,_ he thought. _Cup_ _without_ _end_. _May the wonders never cease._

* * *

"Well, that was totally weird," observed Virginia as Amoretta dragged her around the old farmyard, exhibiting flowers, chickens, and the little watermill. "You got really spooky for a few minutes there," she rubbed her arms briefly, "I got goosebumps."

"I had to draw myself up," Amoretta said with a shrug. "I mean, your mother wouldn't have backed off if I'd just told her I thought she was being mean."

"That's for sure," Virginia admitted. "Anyway, it was pretty cool. Nobody talks back to her like that, except maybe Donald, and then she just karate kicks him into the wall, I mean, like, _metaphorically_."

"I wasn't talking back," Amoretta corrected mildly, "I was stating my position plainly in a way that she could not misunderstand, even if she tried to do so purposefully. We weren't letting her in. There's soft control, and there's hard control. I always start with soft control, but just because I'm nice doesn't mean I'm a pushover. Being amiable isn't a sign of weakness," she said with a shrug. "They say that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, and that's true, I think. What you can do is incentivize water drinking. Then the horse will drink, thinking that it's her own idea."

"That's seriously harsh, Amoretta," Virginia laughed. "You may be pint-sized, but sometimes you talk like a total villain."

"It's only villainous if you have villainous intentions," Amoretta disagreed. "Besides, it wasn't me that was manipulating the conversation back there, it was your mom," she explained. "All I did was shut her down. If you expose the nature of a magician's trick, then it becomes less effective on a discerning audience, at least until they forget about it. We have mammal brains, and we tend to fall for the same tricks over and over again. If you don't know why you think whatever it is you're thinking, then chances are, _someone_ _else_ _does_ , and they've ah, um, assisted? you to think the way that you do. That's why it's extremely important to be thoughtful and self-critical. You shouldn't accept anything at face value, even your own feelings." She paused. "Although, I was being honest when I said that I don't think it would have worked on Hieronymous, regardless. That was a blunt instrument she was using, and he requires more finesse. It's not that I don't think she's sophisticated enough. I'm sure she is, being that she's a professional and all, but she just doesn't know him well enough to really hurt him. He does have a temper, _certainly_ , but it takes more than that to set it off, and even if he did get angry, I trust him," she said, folding her hand over her heart. "I have to. He's my partner."

Virginia let out a low whistle. "Sometimes you seem really grown up, which is weird, because you're mostly a total goon," she observed, then her mouth turned up in a smirk. "So, you definitely don't do any of that manipulating and incentivizing yourself, do you? You just stop other people from doing it, right? Right?"

"Oh no, I do it all the time," Amoretta admitted with a laugh. "It would be wasteful not to. One must use all the tools at one's disposal, after all."

"I knew it!" Virginia crowed loudly, leaping on Amoretta to give her more noogies. "Amoretta Suzerain, you're not just a villain, you're a _super_ villain!"

* * *

The yawning day lay open before Hieronymous Grabiner, and he could smell the dark clouds of a fierce summer thunderstorm building, although the day remained blue and lovely, as blue and lovely as his little wife.

They were going to have a party, she had decided.

She was supposed to be resting quietly, on this her holiday from their intimate school, but of course she had found a new bit of mischief and had smuggled it home with her, like a basket of squirming, squealing kittens.

They were going to have a party and she was going to invite her friends. It would be nice to invite Pastel, and of course there would be Ellen. Minnie was too far away to come up at such short notice she thought, but Raven was already on hand. It would have to be girls only. She didn't think she was ready to host a coed slumber party just yet.

She had so much to do, so much to arrange - oh, if it was all right.

She did ask permission very sweetly.

Of course she had it. She could have her party. She could have whatever she liked.

He could smell the storm that was coming, but it was not something that she could sense.

That was all right. Perhaps it was better -

It was while he was thinking over these difficult things, stewing in his own private misery, that he looked up absently and was completely _felled_.

It was what might have been feebly described as love at first sight, only it seemed to happen to him again and again, as if he were always at risk of catching sight of her again for the very first time.

She was indescribably dear.

It was not in her overwhelming magnificence that he loved her, when she was so brilliant that her bare feet might have burnt marks into the old earth. Of course, he loved her in those moments too, when she was strong and hot and terrifying - there was no singular moment when he was not aware of his love for her. It was ever-present, unforgettable, a constant and now familiar companion. He had the shape of it. He sometimes even arrogantly believed he might have the breadth of it, if not the depth, but there was always uncertainty there, there was always doubt.

And that was because there were moments when his love upswelled unexpectedly, like flash flood waters sweeping everything before them, and he felt that he could not look away from her, even for a moment. In those minutes and hours he loved her so painfully and violently that he was glad that these times came so sparingly, because loving her so powerfully was gutwrenchingly exhausting. He would not have traded the feeling for anything - was grateful for it whenever it welled up, like black gold from the depths of his soul - because it made him feel alive more than anything else, in the passion, and the pain, and the exquisitely gentle feeling of being swallowed by his love for her.

But he had an instinctive knowledge that too much of this staggering love would drive him into madness and death.

So it was fortunate that it was not a constant condition, but one that appeared as unexpectedly as a spanish inquisitor, and departed easily and sweetly, like the scent of jasmine on a late spring breeze.

And it was not in her magnificence that he loved her most acutely. It was the girl who turned circles in her petticoat to watch it bell out around her, who had a collection of bunny slippers, who was as active as a robin in springtime - it was as her lovely, funny, ordinary self - although certainly she was one of the least ordinary persons he had ever met. But seeing her chatting in the garden with the Danson girl, or running up and down the stairs requisitioning pillows and blankets with Cord at her heels, seeing her laugh at her own jokes, throwing her head back, so that the pale line of her neck was visible, seeing _her_ was what seized him and held him. He was captivated by her desire for boardgames and cookies and a pajama party with her friends. She was beautiful because with every move she made, he could feel her heart beat. She was _alive_ like no one else. She _lived_ like no one else. Her smile was like liquid joy, something he felt like a shiver, snaking down his serpentine spine. She created paradise by wondering if she and Virginia ought to build a pillow fort before or after the other girls arrived, or pitch a tent in the side yard and host campfire activities (next time, she decided, already running off to catch a glimpse of the next dizzy vista). He could forgive all the noise and confusion and laughter, although normally they were not what he courted in his life. There was nothing to forgive. It was her idiom. She smiled like god, and his heart ached.

And it was not only in her joy that he loved her, but also in her grief: as she mourned alone in an empty graveyard, when she shivered and could not get warm, as she stood, pale and grave and small, after all the brilliance had burned off. He loved the battered girl, the scarred girl, the bleeding girl, the girl who stood still in the pelting rain. He loved the tired little pacifist who would fight the world to a standstill and ask for no help, although she desperately needed it. He knew that now, how _much_ she needed it.

The damned headmistress was right the way she was always right when he most wanted her to mind her own business. He could not give Amoretta up for any reason, regardless of cost, regardless of sense, regardless, regardless, regardless. Even if the world hung in the balance, even if the end result of his love was uncountable souls suffering and a razed, dead land where nothing would grow: sun bleached bones under the blood red sky, he would love her and he would keep her. Perhaps it would not even be hyperbole. It was dangerous to take things for granted when one's wife was wound in a locus of fate.

He could not make a rational decision, or perhaps it was terrifyingly rational. Amoretta weighed more than the cosmos. That was his truth. Giving her up was no longer something he was capable of doing - if he had ever been capable of doing it.

He loved her as a way of living, as a way of breathing, as a way of _being_ , and he knew that he would move to protect her from anything, no matter the source of the threat. Whatever came, he would turn it aside.

It was because she was the best thing in the world. She was what was worth fighting for. She was what was worth living for.

But she was a busy girl and while she playfully frisked him when she met him as she ran to and fro all over the grounds of Revane, he could not stop her and tell her all he felt.

It was very heavy, and she was as light as a dandelion clock.

He let her do as she liked, and watched.

* * *

Amoretta's friends came bearing gifts like magi.

That was to be expected, perhaps. Theirs was a gift culture, she had learned, but it was still flattering, particularly on such short notice.

Ellen brought three boxes of sweets that came courtesy of Manuel Arias. Once he heard that they were having a slumber party, he had become intent on provisioning it. Cord took custody of these and promised to plate them and deliver them to the party when they were called for. Tansy, not to be outdone by a rival cook, had also made sweets and dainties for the party, and so their larder was full of macarons, french horns, wafers, biscuits, jam tarts, and thick slices of cake. How she accomplished all of this in the span of a few hours Amoretta could not begin to guess, but suspected it probably had something to do with her housekeeper's kobold magic. She resolved to investigate the mystery in the future.

It was well that the larder was full, Amoretta thought, because Virginia had clearly brought her appetite.

Raven's bedroom having furnished the venue for the party, she was pleased to be playing the part of the junior hostess. It was her contribution and Amoretta appreciated her generosity.

Pastel arrived with two train cases and a large paper bag that turned out to be stacked to the brim with magazines.

"The headmistress let me borrow some from the library," she said. "And some others are from my personal collection."

She deposited the heavy stack of magazines on the floor near the cabinet bed.

Pillows and blankets had been piled around the room and all in all, it felt very cozy.

The girls all changed into their pajamas at the appointed time, and Amoretta left them only briefly as they were getting settled, to meet the master of the house at the door to his private study.

He kissed her once, a bit too quickly, and she got the sense that he was preoccupied.

"Tomorrow," he said absently, then repeated himself, his voice trailing off, "Better tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Amoretta asked in confusion.

"I'll tell you tomorrow," he said, and then nodded, as if reaffirming his own conviction.

"If it's important - " Amoretta began hesitantly. She had guests waiting for her upstairs, but they could wait.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "It will keep." He looked at her steadily then, and raised one hand to catch some of her hair between his fingers. He rubbed it lightly between a thumb and forefinger and closed his eyes briefly. Then he released her and said, "Go to your friends."

And Amoretta could not protest because he promptly locked himself in his workshop.

She went up to her friends.

* * *

In the room upstairs, Virginia was busy looking under the furniture, as if she expected to find easter eggs, or perhaps even Waldo himself.

"So, where did you hide the beer and stuff?" she wanted to know.

"What?" Amoretta asked, honestly startled. It was not a question she had expected.

"The spiked jello and the gummi bears soaked in vodka," Virginia explained. "All that stuff."

"I don't have any of that stuff," Amoretta admitted, wondering if her guests would now be offended.

"Really?" Virginia wondered, and seemed disappointed.

"Really," Amoretta insisted. "There isn't any booze at this slumber party," she laughed. "I hope that's okay. I could ask that Cord make some tea or hot chocolate though."

"What made you think that there'd be alcohol at Amoretta's slumber party?" Ellen demanded, somewhat offended. "We're underage, and drinking is against the law."

"Being married to your teacher when you're a minor is also against the law - I'm _pretty_ sure - and she went and did that," Virginia said with a shrug.

"That's different!" Ellen countered, planting her hands on her hips.

"And she just sort of gives the impression that she might smuggle in beer or something," Virginia added.

" _Amoretta_?" Ellen asked in confusion.

"Well," Virginia said. "I mean, her dad did name her after some kind of fancy liquor."

Ellen brought her hand to her forehead and dragged her fingers slowly across her face in a mixture of frustration and resignation. "He did not," she disagreed. "I have told you this a dozen times, Virginia. She's not named after liquor. You're thinking of amaret _to_."

"Same difference," Virginia brushed Ellen off with a lackadaisical shrug.

"It is _not_ ," Ellen complained. "Amoretta is named after a character in Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser's epic poem - "

"Not listening!" announced Virginia brightly. "I mean, her dad's a professional gambler who's always in Las Vegas and Monte Carlo and stuff. I bet she's totally named after that liquor and he just spelled it wrong."

Ellen made a very discontented sound that expressed her inner angst and was about to continue her tirade when Amoretta interceded between the two of them, raising her hands.

"Just let her think whatever makes her happy," she suggested weakly. "I mean, I guess we don't have concrete proof that she's absolutely and _completely_ wrong."

"See?" Virginia said triumphantly. "There's no concrete proof that I'm absolutely and completely wrong."

"It's just beyond a _reasonable_ _doubt_ ," Ellen said dryly.

"Well, just to make it clear, I don't have any liquor or anything," Amoretta laughed. "I mean, there's liquor in the house, but I don't even want to imagine what Hieronymous would do if we raided the liquor cabinet."

"I bet it would start with mass murder," Virginia suggested, raising a finger and wagging it with authority. "No worries," she said. "I'm not that interested or anything, it's just that I'm pretty sure that's a thing teenagers are supposed to do at parties. There is like, a whole secret club about it at school. Honestly, I'd rather eat regular gummi bears than gummi bears soaked in liquor."

"Well, maybe we ought to plan for it at some party that's not _at a professor's house_ ," Amoretta suggested. "I'm afraid he'll make me into a rug, or something."

"Is that a weird euphemism for something gross?" demanded Virginia.

"No!" Amoretta cried out immediately. "It's a _real_ , _actual_ fear of being skinned alive and turned into a rug."

"Oh well," Virginia said, "Okay then."

Amoretta had flopped down on her knees to look at the heavy stack of magazines that Pastel had dumped onto the floor.

"Wow," she let out a low whistle. "If you just look at the covers, it looks like there are five hundred and seventy four _different_ sexy sex tips in these magazines, if you add them all together. That's pretty impressive. And sexy, I guess."

"That must be why Pastel reads them, then," Virginia hooted.

"Darling, I don't need tips from a magazine," Pastel said dismissively, with a graceful wave of her hand, as if she were shooing away an unwanted hors d'oeuvre.

"I'm sure you could _write_ the magazine," Virginia said, sticking out her tongue.

"It's not a secret that I do have some experience," Pastel said comfortably. "Although I can guarantee that I am not _alone_ in this qualification."

"Well, I don't have to take a survey to know that you're the most _experienced_ person in the room," Virginia commented dryly. "I think that's pretty much common knowledge."

"Don't be so certain," Pastel corrected with a mysterious smile. "That depends entirely on whether you are counting _quantity_ of experiences or _quality_ of experiences. Ordinary experiences are quite common, but except for the change of faces and other minor variations, they can end up being quite pedestrian, and they are rarely to be remembered fondly even a few weeks afterward. A person becomes jaded, you know. You cannot share your secret self, your secret heart, with a passionate stranger, no matter how beautiful, no matter how wicked. And there is something to be said about experiences experienced with an experienced lover. There are certain pleasures that are best experienced with a reliable, committed, _knowledgeable_ partner, and I have very little experience with those, though not for lack of trying," she said, finishing with a pretty shrug that fell indolently off her shoulders and came to rest at her elbows, like a mink stole she had discarded.

This unexpected statement caused Raven to lean forward suddenly, planting both her pale hands solidly against the floor as she peered at Amoretta with eyes as wide and unblinking as a taxidermied owl's.

The implications behind this sudden and _naked_ interest could not be ignored, and Amoretta flushed as she giggled unsteadily, asking, "What?" and doing her best to play dumb. "Did I forget to button my shirt or something? Do I have chocolate on my face? Do I have hives? Maybe I'm allergic to sexy magazines."

Raven, obviously embarrassed at what her own reflexive actions had revealed about her thoughts and interests, raised a hand to her mouth and delicately cleared her throat, returning to her previous mannered posture.

But while she warred with herself over her behavior, and what it was appropriate for a lady to ask, her curiosity got the better of her and with a flushed face she looked out under her ridiculously long eyelashes and asked haltingly, "Do you suppose - that they - that Amoretta and the professor - "

Ellen cut into Raven's embarrassed ramblings mercilessly, snarling, " _Of course they have. Any idiot could look at them and see that_."

Amoretta went pink and dove to hide behind Virginia.

Ellen, embarrassed by her own outburst, harrumphed and then stuck her nose in the air and tried very hard to be above it all.

"Hey," complained Virginia. "Don't hide behind me!"

From where she huddled, Amoretta let out a shrill stream of confused protests, "It's not that I'm ashamed of it, or embarrassed or anything, because there's certainly nothing to be embarrassed about, or ashamed of, but talking about details would violate a trust. I'm going to have to invoke attorney-client privilege."

This caused Virginia to roll her eyes magnificently. "What are you even talking about?" she asked, twisting to look over her shoulder at the huddled Amoretta.

"Which one of you is the client, and which one is the attorney?" Pastel wanted to know after a sparkling giggle.

Virginia turned back around to raise an eyebrow. "Is that some kind of weird euphemism?" she asked Pastel. "If so, gross."

"I don't know what she's talking about," Pastel admitted with a smile, "But whatever it is, I think it's _very_ _interesting_."

"Well, I don't," announced Virginia. "I mean, if Amoretta's been banging the Creeper, I can't say I'm particularly surprised. She's been as hot for him as paraffin wax since like, _September_. Whatever. I just don't want to know any details."

"I'm not telling any details," Amoretta reiterated from where she was huddled up and squirming.

Virginia shrugged and rolled her eyes again. Raven was clearly doing her best to appear as if she was not unnaturally interested in hearing said details, and Ellen still had her nose in the air, but her face was flushed, so it was relatively clear that she was _imagining_ details. Probably very elaborate, embellished, _detailed_ details.

"It's all right, little kitten," Pastel comforted. "I won't press you to violate your," she tittered again, "Attorney-client privilege. You don't have to talk about anything private. I didn't bring these magazines just so I could hear some illicit gossip, although after reading them, who knows? Maybe we'll _create_ some illicit gossip of our own."

"You wish," suggested Virginia, sticking out her tongue at Pastel.

"Well, you can't blame a lady for trying," Pastel giggled with another lazy shrug. "Although your reaction is nothing if not _familiar_."

Sensing that the forbidden subject was no longer at the tip of everyone's tongue, Amoretta tentatively sat up again. She found that Pastel was idly leafing through one of the glossy magazines she had brought. Raven had also buried her nose in a fashion magazine with pale figures in heavily stylized garments on the cover. Her eyes met Amoretta's over the spread pages of the magazine, but then she flushed and her eyes dropped again as if she sought to understand its inner mysteries.

As a way of making conversation in the weird silence, Amoretta observed, "I didn't know you could read Japanese, Raven."

"I can't," Raven admitted a bit stiffly, "But the language of fashion is universal."

"She's absolutely correct," Pastel observed, without looking up. "Although the looks may change and the mores and taboos may differ from culture to culture, our bodies are houses of flesh that we must decorate and ornament, just as we ornament our souls. We express our inner selves by embroidering our outer selves. That is fashion."

Virginia groaned, "Don't get Pastel started talking about her philosophy of fashion. She will _never_ shut up."

"I think about it a great deal," Pastel admitted with a smile. "It is a subject worth thinking about. Fashion is a way of owning oneself, of expressing the self wordlessly. Sometimes it is a way of becoming another self entirely. Through it, the beautiful may become grotesque, and the grotesque may become beautiful."

"Fashion isn't a hobby," Raven said seriously, interjecting into the conversation, "It is a raison d'etre."

" _Certainement_ ," agreed Pastel mildly. "I am pleased to meet a kindred spirit." She began to unpack one of the train cases she had brought. Out came bottle after bottle of colored liquid: red, pink, salmon, violet, blue, mint, turquoise, gold, silver - it was as if Pastel intended to paint dozens of very colorful life studies. "Speaking of ornamenting the body, I brought some of my nail lacquer. I would be pleased to paint anyone who's interested."

"She's really good at it," Ellen said, finally descending from her lofty perch. "She always does a beautiful job every time she paints mine."

Amoretta let out a sigh of relief. "I'm glad," she said. "I know that doing things like facials and makeovers is supposed to be an important part of having a slumber party, but I didn't really have time to arrange much, given that this was sort of short notice. I'm also glad you offered to paint, Pastel, because I'm sort of terrible at it," she admitted with embarrassment.

"It takes a steady hand and practice," Pastel agreed. "Since colors can be applied to various parts of the body through enchantment, the physical act of applying cosmetics is not often studied by witches, but I am very fond of rich pigment. I like things that _feel_ _good_ , and grooming feels good. It is the way I enter into the correct state of mind for risque indulgences," she added with a subtle roll of her bare shoulder. "Now, everyone who would like to be painted, please choose a color for yourself, and I'll paint you all in turn. Of course, if you would like to try painting your own fingers or toes, please be my guest. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. They are easily wiped away, and you can begin fresh."

Each of the four girls crowded around the neatly arranged phials of polish at Pastel's invitation, even Virginia, who was clearly mildly embarrassed by her interest. In the end, she selected a vibrant banana yellow.

For herself, Amoretta chose a delicate mint, just the color of the macarons on the plate that Cord had brought up to them.

She turned the bottle over in curiosity and read the color's name aloud, "That's Entertain-Mint." She looked over at Virginia, "What's yours say?"

Virgnia flipped hers over and squinted before she read out, "Ba-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-Batman. That's so weird."

"I'm surprised that they could fit that much on the bottom of the bottle," Amoretta said.

"Well, the print's pretty small," Virginia admitted.

They both turned to look at Raven, who had chosen a dark gunmetal grey with the sheen of petroleum.

She didn't have to flip her bottle over to add, "It's called Bullets Are Just Lead Tears. That's why I chose it."

"I've chosen colors just because of their names before," Amoretta agreed with a giggle. "Some polishes have pretty amazing names. Lipstick is the same way."

"Words are magic," agreed Pastel lazily as she began to daintily paint Amoretta's toes. "And cosmetics are a very potent form of witchcraft."

"Well, I'm not going to argue with that," Amoretta said absently. "It's pretty crazy the kind of effect a little lipstick can have."

Amoretta suddenly felt eyes boring into her and turned her head to see that Raven was looking at her again over the top of her magazine with what appeared to be a mixture of fascination and horror.

Embarrassed, Amoretta grabbed the top magazine from the stack in front of Virginia and tried her best to focus on the contents.

Soon, she had brightened up considerably, forgetting her earlier embarrassment in the thrill of discovery.

By this point the magazine was spread out on the bed in front of her, since she had to hold her prettily painted fingers away from the pages as they dried.

She had been reading magazine sex tips for the better part of a half hour.

"These are amazing," Amoretta said, her eyes shining as if she had just seen a baby bunny in a pinafore hopping around in a field of nodding peonies. "You know what we should do?" she asked in excitement.

"I'm afraid to ask," Ellen said, her eyes wide. She glanced sidelong at the door, as if she felt the need to verify her escape route. Amoretta seemed to be in one of those moods where she glibly proposed felonies, class A misdemeanors, and other activities which were most certainly against school rules and also threatened the moral fabric of society.

"We should make a science fair project!" Amoretta cried, throwing her hands into the air as if her delight could no longer be contained by her mortal shell. "Every one of these tips posits a testable hypothesis! I think it would be lots more interesting than finding out whether plants grow better when they listen to Beethoven or Cutting Crew. Should we focus on the one with the ice cubes, or the one with the jelly donuts?" she wondered aloud, cupping her chin with her hand thoughtfully as a crease appeared in her brow. "We ought to only pick one, otherwise it would be too complicated to keep the results straight. I think I'm in favor of the jelly donuts one myself. I mean, _jelly_ _donuts_ ," Amoretta emphasized the words slowly, one syllable at a time.

Ellen covered her face with her hands. "Amoretta, please consider what you're saying."

"I am considering it," Amoretta said with a pert nod of her head. Then her crooked smile got a bit wicked as she crawled on all fours toward where the reluctant party sat. "Ellen, aren't you curious? Don't you want to know?" Amoretta begged, pulling on one of her arms. "We would be furthering important fields of scientific study!"

"And how exactly do you propose that we test these hypotheses?" Ellen asked shrilly, the color in her cheeks rising even as Amoretta continued to tug on her in a very determined fashion. At that moment, she had a gleam in her eyes that Ellen thought was very dangerous. Amoretta could sometimes be the schoolmate who was determined to force her friends to ride upsetting rollercoasters with names like 'Throwup King' and 'Unending Torture Spiral,' the schoolmate who couldn't understand why some of her friends might be reluctant to join in these endeavors with equal enthusiasm.

The question halted Amoretta's incessant pulling for a moment.

"Oh," she said, and then thought about it carefully for a minute. "We should probably ask for volunteers, the same way they do for psych studies at Harvard," she said after her reflection. "I'm sure if we put up a request on the bulletin board near the library we could get some test subjects, particularly if we offer some kind of compensation. Maybe Manuel could provide the donuts! I'll have to think about it for a bit to decide how we ought to set up the tests to make them double-blind though."

"I hate to burst your bubble, but we don't have a science fair, so I dunno where you plan to publish your, um, results," Virginia pointed out. "And I'm pretty sure doing sciency stuff is against school rules, or something."

"Well, we wouldn't be using science to investigate _magic_. We'd be using it to investigate these awful and amazing magazine sex tips," Amoretta argued, waving the magazine around triumphantly. "I bet if we asked permission, the headmistress would let us conduct some surveys. The scientific method isn't one of the five abominations," she said importantly, then tilted her head to the side, "At least I don't think it is."

"You can't do naughty things with a bunch of random students, Amoretta," Ellen exploded at last. "Even if you claim that it's for science, you just can't do something like that without regard for consequences. You're married! Even if you weren't I don't think it would be ethical or hygienic! I never imagined that you were so shameless. What would the professor say?" she demanded, scandalized. "I will never participate in such a reckless scheme of debauchery!"

Amoretta looked up in confusion. "What?" she asked, puzzled. "I never said anything about _me_ being involved in the study. Don't be silly, Ellen. We're scientists. If we took part in the experiment there's no way it could be double-blind. That doesn't make any sense. Anyway, I don't have any desire to do whatever it is you've been imagining that I want to do. My interest in the effectiveness of the jelly donut technique can be chalked up to curiosity only," she said, raising a finger authoritatively. "Even if we discovered that it was super effective, I doubt that I'd uh, put the information into practice in my private life. I don't really like the idea of food mixed with, um, _other_ activities," she admitted with some embarrassment. "But I think people are really incredibly interesting, and this would be a fun and exciting way to find out more about them. I just like knowing things, you know? All I was suggesting was for us to just gather some data from people who would be um, experimenting with one another anyway. Like an exit poll on election day: 'Considering X, did you feel more or less pleased?' 'On a scale of one to ten, how would you value the experience of X?' 'How does the idea of the absence of X make you feel?'"

"I think X would be a waste of good jelly donuts," Virginia said, flopping back on the bed.

Ellen covered her face with her hands.

"Ell~en let her imagination run away with her again," laughed Pastel in supremely contented amusement. "She's so cute when she does that," she said as she delicately tapped Ellen on the cheek. "You're the really naughty one, Ell~en!"

"Well, how was I supposed to know that _that's_ what Amoretta meant?" Ellen demanded, still scandalized. "It was all _extremely_ unclear."

"Maybe you should give the little kitten some credit that all her ideas aren't the beginnings of letters to Penthouse," Pastel suggested with a wink.

Ellen crossed her arms over her chest and turned her back on the rest of them, making a huffing noise.

"I don't think we should continue to read trashy publications like that magazine," she said. "Why does the library even have a subscription?"

"Because it's a famous national women's magazine?" Amoretta suggested with amusement. "It's not like you can't read the same things in half a dozen others in the checkout line at the grocery store, in between articles about weight loss, cupcakes, and celebrity scandal."

"We ought to spend our time more prudently engaged," she said with decision. "Jelly donuts. Whoever heard of such nonsense!"

"That it's probably nonsense is what makes it so exciting! I think nonsense can be absolutely spellbinding," Amoretta said with enthusiasm. "It's like doing an experiment to find out if someone could get killed by a ninja throwing playing cards. The question itself is _hilarious_ ," she tried to explain. "That's what makes it fun!"

"Well, I'm going to suggest that the school cancel their subscription to _that_ magazine and subscribe to Bird Watcher's Digest instead," Ellen said importantly. "It's much better to have something useful and interesting."

"The library already subscribes to Bird Watcher's Digest," Amoretta pointed out amiably. "I read that magazine pretty regularly, so I'm sure of it. Oh, oh," she said excitedly, clapping her hands, "Maybe you could ask for them to subscribe to American Entomologist!" Amoretta suggested. "I'd really like to read that!" She tilted her head to the side, "Although you know, I really don't have any objections to this magazine," she said, tapping the glossy pages with a prettily painted forefinger. "It would be nice to have them both."

Ellen looked over her shoulder to deliver a stare worthy of a grudge spirit. Amoretta got the gist of her message as, _You are missing the point._

"You know, even if you did get permission from Professor Potsdam for your um, science project," Virginia began with a raised eyebrow, "I get the idea that Grabby would probably object. Loudly. Maybe even violently. Like, they might need a SWAT team to bring him down."

"You're probably right," Amoretta admitted with a sigh. "Although I think that running an experiment like that would be a lot of fun, I'm not sure it's worth the hassle. Sometimes defiance is necessary, but it's bad manners to be difficult just for your own amusement." She paused, "Well, unless it's really _really_ amusing," she amended. "Then it might be worth it. As it is, I'm sure his glowering would spoil all the fun I'd get out of it. I will have to bid a fond farewell to my prospective career as a high school sex behaviorist. I'll put it in the pile marked 'good idea, but too difficult to execute,' along with high school criminal psycologist and high school demolition derby driver. That's a shame, because I'm pretty sure it would be really interesting to be a high school criminal psychologist who had an interest in human sexuality and was also a demolition derby driver."

She smiled as she finished because she could just imagine Grabiner pulling his hat down hard on his head and growling out, _Thank heaven for little miracles._

"You're so conscientious," admired Pastel. "No wonder Professor Grabiner is so attached to you."

"I get the impression that you're teasing me," Amoretta said suspiciously.

"Maaaaay~be," Pastel sang out.

"Well, I _am_ conscientious," Amoretta agreed, her smile quirking crookedly as she confidently put her hands on her hips, "And beautiful, and talented, and charismatic, and modest."

"Especially that last one," hooted Virginia. "Good thing you didn't put elegant in there, or we'd have known you were lying."

"Who says I can't be elegant?" Amoretta demanded.

"Merriam-Webster?" suggested Ellen apologetically, "A lot of very nice words come to mind when I think of you, Amoretta, but elegant just isn't one of them. How about energetic?"

"That's just a nice way of saying I'm a spazz," Amoretta said, pouting.

"Well, you are a spazz," Virginia pointed out.

Amoretta sighed very melodramatically and said, "That's true."

"Your spazziness is very endearing," Ellen said diplomatically.

"Well, I'm glad you think so, but it would be nice to be thought of as an elegant, cool beauty, and I'm pretty sure they aren't spazzy," Amoretta said.

"Well, if it means that much to you, I might be willing to admit that you're a _little_ elegant," Virginia said thoughtfully.

"Really?" Amoretta asked hopefully, brightening visibly. "So would you say I'm more like Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly in terms of elegance? I mean, I do try - " She had struck what she meant to be an elegant pose, with one hand on her hip and the other buried in her hair, her chin inclined, her lips slightly puckered.

"It's hard to say," Virginia interrupted before Amoretta could wax too poetic about her spontaneously invented elegance training regime. "You've got your own _special_ kind of elegance," she said. "If I had to pin it down, I'd say you're as elegant as those goofy egg shaped toys they give to toddlers. The ones that wobble, but won't fall down," Virginia finished with a cackle. "Pretty much describes your grace too."

"You mean weebles?" Amoretta demanded, her eyes going wide. "You really just said I was elegant like a weeble?" When Virginia just waved her hands above her head in response, Amoretta threw her own arms into the air and leapt upon the taller girl, crying, "Motherland!"

They wrestled briefly, which inevitably ended with Virginia pinning Amoretta to the bed and Amoretta giving up. Virginia had an astonishing repertoire of pro wrestling moves and always performed them while loudly calling out their names for her viewing audience. Pastel politely clapped while Ellen rolled her eyes and Raven watched with a small crease in her brow, like a confused xenobiologist observing alien lifeforms.

Although they often wrestled as messily as puppies, Virginia was always careful not to actually hurt the smaller girl who was even now wriggling around like a greased fish. She took particular care now, but wasn't so gentle that Amoretta felt unnecessarily coddled and smothered, except in the general sense that Virginia was holding her pressed face first against the mattress.

"But I _don't_ look like a weeble," Amoretta insisted piteously, kicking her feet weakly against the bed, like a small child throwing a very half-hearted tantrum.

"I didn't say you looked like a weeble," Virginia corrected. "I said you were as elegant as a weeble. That is _zero_ percent elegant, for all the fans keeping score. Washes out clean, leaves absolutely no residue of elegance behind. Only sort of cute, dumb spazziness."

Amoretta sniffled for effect and then nodded once. "I guess that's all right then."

"You were very pretty at the May Day Ball, though," Ellen consoled.

Amoretta managed a gratified affirmative into the bed, and then was cordially allowed to return to her previous perch by her captor. The topic of the women's magazine having been thoroughly exhausted, she wondered what they ought to try next: hair braiding, facial masks, further embarrassing confessions? They didn't have a television, so they could watch neither sentimental period romances nor technicolor musicals. They definitely couldn't watch sentimental period romances that were also technicolor musicals, which probably would have been best of all. What they were to do next was certainly the sixty-four thousand dollar question.

A silence fell over the girls as she was thinking, and it was very quiet in the room as they all looked at one another. Amoretta was about to try and introduce another topic of conversation when Pastel spoke.

"Since we are all together, there is something I'm interested to find out," Pastel said thoughtfully. "Something I haven't had the opportunity to ask about."

"Just so long as it's not questions about my, um, relationship with Professor Grabiner," Amoretta said, thinking about the question that had been foremost in the sylph's mind during the spring, "I mean, stuff about, _you_ _know_. I won't answer anything specific."

"Gross!" interjected Virginia. "Don't answer anything general either!"

Amoretta ignored Virginia's outburst and concentrated on Pastel.

"I'm sorry," she apologized weakly. "It's just that it's private. I'm not really comfortable sharing it."

"I'll respect your 'attorney-client privilege,' kitten. Besides, I don't have to ask to know how _that's_ going," Pastel said with amusement, and Amoretta felt a little faint. "Don't worry," she said idly. "I wasn't going to ask about your marriage to Professor Grabiner," she assured.

"Well then, go ahead," Amoretta said. "I'll do my best to answer, if I can."

"How would you describe your relationship with Damien at this point?" Pastel wondered, her wings fanning slowly behind her. The lamplight shining through them made them seen crystalline and delicate, like dew on a spider's web. "I know what you told the assembly back in the spring, but I wonder if anything has changed?" She asked with curiosity. "I hear that he's seized the throne that his father once held, although he still faces considerable opposition to his rule, given that he's half human," her lids fell as she looked away from Amoretta and ran her teeth over her lower lip. "I suppose I can sympathize with that part of it at least," she said. "I believe he is _at_ _war_ at the moment, attempting to do away with his adversaries as he solidifies his position. I suppose that's quite romantic, in its own way: the exiled prince fighting for his birthright against terrible odds. You could be Guinevere, darling: a _queen_."

Amoretta absently put her hand over the mark on her shoulder. There was now a complex mandala of magic lying dormant over much of the skin of her torso, thanks to the combined efforts of her husband and Rail Finch. If it had been possible to ignore the implications of the mark before, with grit and determination, it was no longer possible to do such a thing. She was marked. Damien had written 'property of Damien Ramsey' on her in her own blood. That part was very difficult no matter how she tried to think about it.

"Rather than Guinevere, Helen might be more appropriate," Amoretta murmured to herself.

"Well, I think his manners are questionable at best," Raven said with an air of disdain. "I don't find the take-what-you-want types to be very appealing at all. He may have a silver tongue, but that can't disguise the fact that he's totally gauche. Trying to carry off a married woman. _Really_."

"Well," Pastel said, shrugging philosophically, "Everyone's tastes are different, darling."

Ellen frowned severely. "Is this really the sort of thing we ought to be talking about at a slumber party?" she demanded, ready to defend her strange little friend to the death. "Amoretta nearly died, you know? I'm sure the topic is painful for her."

Amoretta laughed weakly. "No, it's all right," she insisted with a nod. "I don't mind talking about it, but I'm not sure what I have to say will be particularly interesting." She frowned. "How would I describe my relationship with Damien?" She paused thoughtfully. "Complicated and ambiguous, I guess," she admitted with a slow shrug. "Someone suggested recently that I might still be friends with him," she laughed awkwardly. "Although it was true at one point, I wouldn't say it's true now. I can't say that I _like_ Damien," she said seriously, her brow furrowed. "At the same time, I can't really say that I _dislike_ him," she admitted helplessly. "I guess you could say that I'm waiting for more information before I take up a sure position. I thought I understood things before, but I was so totally wrong," she smiled weakly. "That's why I'm trying to be very careful now. I don't know enough. I don't understand enough. All I can say for certain is that I'm reserving judgement."

Ellen had gritted her teeth when Amoretta had ambiguously alluded to her own earlier conversation with Raven, and now that Amoretta finished, a furious response exploded out of the girl seated on the pile of pillows on the floor.

"How can you possibly say that?" Ellen demanded, her cheeks flushed. "He's been awful to you - you've almost died _twice_ because of that horrible mark he gave you, and I know it hurts you. It's impossible that I _not_ know. I'm not blind. He's _evil_ , Amoretta. That's obvious. All he wants to do is _hurt_ _you_ as much as he can - "

Surprisingly it was Pastel who quieted Ellen, throwing her arms around the fuming girl and rubbing her chest against Ellen's back until the other girl got red from more than fury.

"Ell~en," Pastel mewled out, attempting to pacify the angry girl. "It sounds like Amoretta is being very mature, don't you think?"

"No!" Ellen declared angrily and at once, crossing her arms over her chest. "How is painting a target on her back mature? She's loveable, and we all love her, but at this rate she's going to get herself killed. There's such a thing as being too trusting and forgiving. She won't think about consequences."

"Now you sound like Hieronymous," Amoretta laughed with embarrassment.

"I'm interested in hearing what you have to say, Miss Rao," Raven said seriously, looking up from the fashion magazine that she had been studying. "I also believe that Amoretta's position is mature, but I would like to hear why you believe it to be so."

Pastel left off rubbing herself on Ellen long enough to raise a slender finger. "Well," she said, "For one thing, Amoretta isn't letting her thoughts be clouded by her anger or her pain. She isn't moving in accordance with unbridled emotion. That takes a lot of discipline. And then there's the fact that most everyone else who's heard her story has already decided their position in regards to Damien, haven't they? That means there's a whole lot of pressure on her to just align her thoughts with theirs - I mean, to come around to their way of thinking. It's very difficult to hold an opinion contrary to the one that everyone else holds, don't you think, Ell~en? It's particularly hard not to be swayed when it's a very important _intimate_ associate who disagrees with you. It's much easier to give in just to keep things nice and peaceful and," here Pastel gave a low giggle, "Fluid. It's not that Amoretta has a silly opinion because she hasn't thought about it hard enough. It seems to me that she's thought about it very hard. Isn't that right, little kitten?"

Amoretta started up at that, her embarrassed flush deepening. "Well," she started off awkwardly -

"Gross!" announced Virginia loudly. "Professor Weirdo is gross. I don't want to hear anything about him. Damien is gross. I don't want to hear anything about him either. I don't really like these conversations at all, because they're usually boring, but at least I could stand them if you guys weren't always talking about moldy old Grabby and that scummy dummy Damien. Don't you guys have secrets to tell about anybody else? I mean, _anybody_ else? You know, somebody who's not an actual real life _authentic_ hell spawned demon or a twelve thousand year old grandpa who's got a temperament like old gym socks?"

Pastel giggled into her hand, "Well then, help us turn the conversation. Are there any boys you _do_ like?" she wondered.

"Virginia doesn't like boys," Amoretta announced candidly. "She likes girls!"

"AMORETTA! You can't just tell people that! They'll get the wrong idea! I mean, I don't hate girls or anything, but there's no girl in particular that I like and you're making it sound like there _is_ \- " yelled Virginia angrily, having gone a very purplish red color all over. She walloped Amoretta with a pillow so hard that it was sure to be a total knock out.

Although bowled over by the blow, Amoretta weakly raised a hand and admitted, "Oh wait. I forgot. She likes one boy."

Ellen sighed in disgruntlement and placed her fingertips against her forehead in resignation, "Don't say Wi - "

"BALTHASAR!" Amoretta announced, springing up onto the bed like she was ready to perform a solo number under a bright spotlight.

Virginia roared in incoherent rage and tackled Amoretta back onto the bed. They wrestled around in a tangle as Amoretta helplessly giggled, "Don't try to deny it! I know about your hidden, secret love! It has a name that cannot be spoken! I know you cry every night into your pillow because he graduated!" she whimpered out breathlessly in between laughs. "Oh my love, sing me a song of your dark and mulchy compost, of earthworm poop and banana peels - "

"I could kill you!" threatened Virginia huffily. She was sitting on Amoretta's back and pulling on one of her legs.

"But you won't because you love me!" Amoretta chirped happily, flailing about in contentment. "I am loveable! Ellen said so. I withdraw my earlier contention!" she said, giving a thumbs up despite the fact that Virginia was still sitting on her, looking nonplussed. "Virginia doesn't like boys or girls! Her one true love is: cake!"

"Well," Virginia admitted thoughtfully, "I do love cake."

"We should eat some cake!" Amoretta suggested, half muffled because her face was pressed against the mattress.

Ellen pressed both her palms over her eyes. "And this is the part where they make up," she predicted.

Like powerful spell with an instantaneous result, Virginia and Amoretta were the best of friends again, laughing and slapping each other on the back. Amoretta dove for a plate of sweets and their reconciliation was complete.

Pastel giggled into her hand again.

"What?" Virginia demanded suspiciously, while Amoretta pressed a plate of macarons on her, one hanging out of her own mouth. Virginia was wary of being the butt of another joke.

"I was just thinking that you all seem to be such good friends that I'm jealous." Her eyes narrowed slightly and she seemed to shrink a little as she shivered. "That sort of connection is very precious."

Even as Pastel said it, Amoretta's eyes darted sideways to see Raven press her lips together silently, and slowly turn another page in her magazine.

"Well, I think we're all extra specially close now," Amoretta declared. "After all, we're having a ultra girly slumber party now, and that is a super deluxe way for girls to bond with one another. I know because I've read a lot of books on the subject and everybody knows that books are an excellent source of information, regardless of the topic. I'm sure that after this evening, our relationships will have levelled up one hundred percent!" she finished with confidence.

Ellen frowned and Amoretta worried that she was about to say something, but she apparently thought better of it and held her tongue.

Pastel cocked her head to the side thoughtfully, laying a finger delicately against the side of her face.

"Well, if we are meant to be bonding, then we ought to do what all girls do at times like these," she said dreamily. "Confess our secrets."

"Yeah, we all know what a great secret keeper you are, Pastel," Virginia noted dryly, stuffing a macaron in her mouth.

Pastel didn't even blink.

"I talk about interesting things with interesting people," she admitted with a lazy shrug. "If you have a secret that you think you have to be very careful of, then don't mention it to me. That way I can't tell whoever it is that you don't want me to tell." Her eyes took on a sleepy sort of satisfaction as her lids drooped and she added breathily, "But you ought to recognize that secrets have a way of getting themselves found out. It isn't wise to depend on a secret being kept. It is in the very nature of a secret that it must be told."

"I'll keep that in mind," Virginia said, rolling her eyes.

Amoretta laughed to cover the awkwardness but then Virginia seemed to brighten up with an idea.

"If you're so gung-ho about secrets, then why don't you tell us one of yours?" she said. "That might go a little ways toward making it easier for everybody else to talk to you."

"If that's what you want, then I have no objection," giggled Pastel. Then she wet her lips and leaned back on the pillows piled on the floor. "Do you know who I find terribly sexy these days?"

"It better not be Grabby," warned Virginia, sticking out her tongue. "If it is, I don't want to hear about it. I'll know for sure that you had some of whatever spiked kool-aid that Amoretta is always drinking."

"In the case of the married pair, I think the little wife might be a better catch," Pastel trilled, blowing a kiss over the pads of her fingertips at Amoretta. "Lately she seems to have a glow that indicates - " Pastel giggled again and she sounded positively indulgent. "Well, it indicates that she has healthy appetites."

"Gross!" complained Virginia loudly.

"Appetite for cake!" Amoretta insisted, her cheeks red. "She's talking about my healthy appetite for cake! Which is just like your healthy appetite for cake and in no way weird or taboo or immoral! I'm not part of a cake subculture or anything," she continued, breathing rapidly and completely keyed up. Her pitch rose with every word, and she couldn't have _begun_ to explain what it was she was talking about to her audience, even as she talked about it _very_ _rapidly_. "I just like very ordinary cake in a very ordinary way!"

Amoretta was trying her hardest not to dwell either long or lingeringly upon the activities that had occupied the whole of her neocortex at a time in the not-so-distant past. She was sure that if she thought about them even a little, then those thoughts would show on her face like a signed confession. She had never been good at concealing truths, particularly when they were obvious. She wasn't _ashamed_ necessarily, but after her earlier conversation with Grabiner she had reflected carefully on the meaning of paraphilia. Some things it was best to keep close to the chest.

But it was challenging to keep things close to the chest that had once been openly acknowledged. While her fantasies had remained fantasies, they had been the perfect fodder for sly comments and teasing jokes.

Frankly, it had been a lot easier to crack jokes about being tied up before he had _actually_ _tied_ _her_ _up_.

But the sylph girl was apparently untroubled by Amoretta's gordian dilemma.

"Of course, I meant cake. I'm very fond of cake myself. It's why I suspect we would be a good match. Think about it carefully, little kitten. I wouldn't mind an invitation for cake some time," purred Pastel, indulgent and clearly indulging. "No matter who you'd like to share it with."

Amoretta turned mauve. She tried very hard to formulate a sensible reply: a harmless, innocent, _purposefully_ _obtuse_ reply that referenced only baked goods, but she failed entirely. Her only recourse was to burrow face first into the blankets on the bed, so that only her wholesomely polkadotted rear was left exposed.

The only coherent thing that had flashed through her mind was _I'm absolutely sure that's against a whole lot of laws!_

It wasn't something she could just blurt out without explanation at a slumber party.

Fortunately for her, Pastel continued on idly.

"But no, Professor Grabiner is not who I was thinking of," she laughed and made a gun out of her thumb and forefinger and fired it silently at Virginia. "Actually, I was thinking of your brother, William. He's always been attractive, that's true," she admitted, "But lately there's just something about him. _Je_ _ne_ _sais_ _quoi_? An edge of uncertainty? Maybe desperation? It ignites a _yen_."

"William _is_ great," admitted Virginia thoughtfully at exactly the same time Ellen made a retching sound.

"William is the worst," she said flatly.

"What?" asked Virginia in confusion. "Where did that come from? I thought that you - "

"They had a fight," Amoretta explained gingerly, popping out of the blankets like an early jonquil. Her hurry to cut Virginia off before she revealed anything too delicate about Ellen's situation in front of Pastel banished her own uncertain self-consciousness. She would do her best to try not to think of things that were surely felonies while trying to enjoy a morally upright evening with her friends. "I'm sure it'll all get sorted out in a few days," she assured.

Virginia's eyebrows drew together in scrutiny. "If you say so," she said, but she didn't sound entirely convinced.

Amoretta, anxious to cover the awkward tension in the room, brightly latched onto Raven, who had been mostly silent.

"How about you, Raven? What sort of boys do you like? I mean, other than Hieronymous - " even as she asked it, Raven turned the color of blood at sunset and seemed to deflate entirely against her pillow, where she sat, quivering.

"How did you know?" she asked in a very small voice.

"Uh," Amoretta began in absolute confusion, "Well, it's sort of obvious." She laughed in mild embarrassment, feeling that she had put her foot in a substance that was not sweetly perfumed. "I don't know how else to put it," she said, scratching the back of her head, "It's just - well, sort of obvious."

Raven did not uncurl, but instead slowly squirmed back and forth against her pillow, hiding her face. Amoretta couldn't tell whether she was experiencing exquisite anguish, or exquisite pleasure. Knowing Raven, it might have been both at the same time.

"I didn't mean to embarrass you," Amoretta said with concern, moving over to where Raven lay on the ground, squirming. She tried to pat her head awkwardly. It was mostly awkward because with Raven squirming. Amoretta only successfully landed every third or fourth pat, and mostly just comforted the empty air.

"You sure didn't mind embarrassing me," complained Virginia.

"That's good for you," insisted Amoretta. "Besides, I think you're getting immune to me bringing up your true, true love with Balthasar. Maybe I'll write a beautiful poem about your love. Ellen, help me think of romantic things that rhyme with 'yak dung.'"

"I categorically refuse," Ellen stated.

"Oh well," Amoretta said idly. "I think there's a rhyming dictionary in the library. I'll just file that idea under 'L' for 'Later.'" She looked down at Raven who was still wriggling about in a state of overstimulated distress. "Are you okay, Raven? I didn't want to make you sad."

"I'm not sad," Raven confessed into her pillow. "I'm just - well, it's a delicate situation, isn't it? You're his wife, which makes me _the_ _other_ _woman_."

Ellen groaned loudly and made no attempt to disguise it.

Pastel, still reclining next to her, rose up on her knees even as Ellen groaned and said, "No, no, Raven. That should never be your aim, to be the other woman."

Ellen nodded sensibly. "That's right," she said with stalwart decision.

"What you must make an absolute and indelible truth, what you must write into their flesh, what you work your feminine witchcraft to accomplish at all costs is not to be this woman, that woman, or the other woman," Pastel continued with half-lidded eyes and a secret smile. "It is to be _the_ woman, darling. The end all. The be all. Nothing else is acceptable. Nothing else is in the least bit interesting or relevant."

" _Pastel_!" interjected Ellen, highly distressed.

"Oh Ell~en," chortled Pastel, moving to rub herself affectionately against the girl whose morality had been so offended, "Don't be a little old maid who guards her virtue until it's turned to dust. If you're going to bother being a woman at all, then of course you must be _the_ woman. Oh, Ellie~belle, If you'll only let yourself slip through the looking-glass more often, I think you'll find the world on the other side of respectability can be very pleasurable. I think if you just indulged with a little more abandon, you might develop a dizzying affinity for cake of all kinds and types. After all, there's lots of room for _experimentation_."

Amoretta giggled into her hand in embarrassed sympathy at Ellen's predicament with the casually affectionate sylph girl, and this set her own mind a little at ease even as Ellen stammered out a vague and evasive reply.

 _Poor Ellen. That's two of us who've tried to capitalize on her curiosity tonight. I guess Pastel is a little frisky with everybody_ , she decided. _I shouldn't read too much into what she says_. _She'll probably proposition everybody before the night's over._

She turned her attention back down to the dark haired girl who was still undulating against the pillow under her. With the way she was moving, Raven might have been a sad little bird in the midst of a mating dance that was more a pathetic flail than a come-hither enticement.

"Thanks for being considerate of my feelings, Raven," Amoretta said with amusement and affection, "But you don't really have to worry about it. I don't mind that you're attracted to him. It seems natural to me anyway," Amoretta said, flushing as she put her fingertips against her cheeks, "He is the most attractive person at our school, after all," she finished dreamily.

"VETO!" yelled Virginia, hurling her pillow at Amoretta, and obliging the hostess to dodge. "I swear, Amoretta. You need your head checked. I may not really know what kind of boy a normal girl would want to go on dream dates with, but I for sure know that it ain't Grabby."

Amoretta stuck her tongue out at Virginia. "I just have mature tastes," she insisted.

"You've got lesions on your brain," Virginia suggested dryly.

"Professor Grabiner is very attractive," Ellen agreed calmly, having gotten Pastel somewhat under control. "Whether or not Virginia is willing to admit it, it is true."

"He's got that stormy weather appeal," advised Pastel.

"And it's not just the way he looks, you know," Amoretta said, warming up to a favorite topic: Grabiner appreciation. She rarely had a captive audience, and since this one had no means of escape, she took the opportunity to let herself wander aloud. "He just has this way of standing, and he folds his hands behind his back, and he turns so he looks at you over his shoulder - and sometimes he has this _presence_ \- I think it could shatter glass. It's amazing. Like he could push you up against a wall without even touching you."

"That's a first year spell," Virginia observed. "Anybody who passed red this year could do that. Probably even Luke Phifer, and he blew himself up during the final exam. I don't get why that's a selling point. It ain't no great shakes."

"I don't mean with a _spell_ ," Amoretta said, rolling her eyes. "Although he did do that to me once," she observed thoughtfully, and despite the fact that Virginia faked being sick, she continued on with her meandering observations, trying to conjure the magic that was Hieronymous Grabiner, the way he appeared to her. "I guess the threat was nice, although it was _terrifying_ at the time. I know better now. He'd never do anything to hurt me. It isn't in him. That part's not dangerous at all. He was just playing a game, and the only reason it was frightening is that he knew the rules at that point and I didn't. If I had known then what I know now - well, it would have been like walking on a balance beam when it's only a painted line on the pavement."

She cocked her head to the side thoughtfully and placed a fingertip against her lips before she continued. "It's more his _intention_ and maybe it's also knowing what he's capable of doing," she said. "He can be so powerful, but he has this _incredible_ control. He's always so in control of _himself_. You never see _half_ of what he thinks and even less than that of what he does, no matter how closely you watch him. He shines like light on obsidian, deep and dull, but _lustrous_ ," she struggled to explain the contradiction. "If you run your hands over it, it's smooth like glass, but it breaks like the edge of a knife, and you _bleed_. It gives me a thrill to think of what he's like when he's off the chain, when he's really pushing his limits. Because when it comes, it's like boom!" She had folded her hands over her chest, and when she made the sound of the explosion, she mimed her heart thumping out of her chest. "No limits. They're gone like they never existed in the first place." She blinked a couple of times dreamily before she continued slowly. "He's warm," she said fondly, "That's comfortable. That's safe. That's familiar. He's warm," she repeated, and her eyes lost their focus as her flush deepened again until she seemed half feverish, "And he _burns_."

Ellen flushed and pointedly looked anywhere but at Amoretta. Pastel provided applause, apparently delighted by Amoretta's recitation. This commotion snapped Amoretta out of her self-hypnotism, and she looked at her lap in embarrassment.

 _That is exactly what I was trying not to do,_ she thought to herself.

"He is very competent," Ellen admitted while looking at the wall. "But maybe you shouldn't be quite so forthcoming -"

But it was Raven's turn to pop up like a jonquil, apparently cured of her mortification by the topic of their conversation. Her face was rosy and her eyes were sparkling, "He's not just competent. He's _superlative_ ," she disagreed. "Do you know that he was a celebrated duelist before he left Newton's Cradle? As a schoolboy he regularly bested adults. He's licensed to use A class magic at his discretion, and it's an international license, not just a domestic one. He has such control over the field when he fights that he can rewrite another witch's spells even as she casts them. He was a co-author on several of Violet Lore's academic papers while he was in high school. Everyone knows he was her research partner, and his knowledge of theoretical magic is superb enough to get him a position at the University if he were interested in having one. He also plays the flute at a level to be a concert soloist, although it's just a hobby for him. And that doesn't even touch on _his_ _family_."

"They are nobility," Amoretta said slowly. "It really surprised me when I found out," she admitted. "Although I guess in some ways he does sort of seem like a duke that would twirl his waxed mustache and then tie a wailing blonde girl to some railroad tracks."

Raven started.

"It isn't that," she said. "I mean, certainly, the title is old and important. I believe they were granted the barony in some early war with the Scots. Their family seat is situated to defend the northern border. The Viscountcy they got later. But that isn't it. There are a dozen wizards and witches with noble titles in England, although only a couple have seats in parliament. Five baronets, four barons, and three viscounts, I believe."

"Oh!" Amoretta interjected with interest. "The Viscounts Hyde, Maule, and Montague," she said, pleased to display her own knowledge.

"I think so," Raven agreed hesitantly. "You know more about it than I expected."

Amoretta waved her off, "I've written a lot of thank you letters," she explained. "They all sent wedding presents."

"It isn't the title, really," Raven said. "That's not the most remarkable thing." She shook her head seriously before she continued. "The Grabiners are one of the six great families. They've been necromancers for generations, and servants of the crown since the _Plantagenets_. It was a Grabiner who read bones for Queen Elizabeth. I don't mean the current queen, I mean the _original_ Queen Elizabeth," Raven repeated for emphasis. "They're an old family, and when I say old, I mean _old_. They can trace their origins back to the Roman republic. They were necromancers _then_ too. Named, living families really don't go back further than that, not in Europe. They've been in Britain since the Norman conquest, and have been respected members of the Rex Curia since it was founded. The name 'Grabiner' is of germanic origin, and I believe that they claim some Saxon heritage. 'Grabiner' means 'digger of graves.' Professor Grabiner's middle name, Sexton is sort of a pun, you see, because sextons are gravediggers. The current Viscount Montague, Professor Grabiner's father, is probably the greatest necromancer who has ever lived. His appellation is the Laughing Skull, the Shade of Shetlock. Sometimes he's even called the Pendragon because there's a story that he put an elfin queen on her throne _himself_. They say that he could call up and command a legion of the dead if he wanted to. They say he did just that to build the Labyrinth of Shetlock and that it was raised in only one night. He's not just an archwizard. He's a _legend_. Death is in that family's blood. Their motto is _deficit omne quod nascitur_ and their livery colors are traditionally black and red: red as blood and black as the grave. They've even got a family curse! It is said that men of the line always meet extremely gruesome ends, often at a young age. They say that the Queen of the Dead fancies them so much that it is rare that she suffers one to live overlong. They're just so _perfect_."

"Everything that's born dies," Ellen said, her brow furrowing. "That's what _deficit omne quod nascitur_ means. Something like that, anyway. That's a quotation from somewhere. There's more to it that I can't remember."

"I honestly thought you knew," Raven said helplessly. "It's why I thought to come here. I thought if anyone might understand my position as the last Peabody, it would be Professor Grabiner, who is the last Grabiner. Necromancy is a challenging discipline, not the least because it is generally _illegal_." Raven blinked as she studied Amoretta. "I don't really understand how you could be a Grabiner by law and contract and not even have an inkling of the privileges the position affords," she confessed.

"Well, let's just say the situation is complicated," Amoretta said vaguely. _In the beginning he wanted me to know as little as possible,_ she thought, _And then afterwards I was trying to avoid as much as I could because I thought that trying to figure things out was an invasion of his privacy. That didn't do anybody any good. I'm an idiot._

"You, madam, have rights to practice necromancy yourself, as you are a Grabiner," Raven said seriously.

"Oh, well, that's interesting," remarked Amoretta. "It's good to know, at least." She paused. "You sure know a lot about the Grabiners," she said in wonder. "It's like you're a historian of their family or something. I feel like you should exhibiting slides."

"I am a Peabody," Raven said regally. "I am heir to the lineage of Cysgodion. It is natural that I would know about the other great families. Although Professor Grabiner's line is very old and powerful, I have nothing to be ashamed of on that count. My own line is an honored one. Besides, knowledge of lineage, tradition, and heritage are all important subjects for a young lady to master. I could give a less detailed accounting of the Dansons or the Cochrans or the Phifers, but I am particularly interested in the Grabiners, as they are necromancers, just as my family was before we fell out of favor."

"But Hieronymous isn't a necromancer," Amoretta said in confusion. "Or if he is, then he's hidden it _really_ well."

Raven shook her head. "It's said that he has never practiced the family art, although everyone knows that he's a gifted summoner," she agreed. "But he is one of the few people in the world who may call and bind shadows, spirits, and the restless dead _legally_. And he's heir to a very great lineage. I'm sure he has a remarkable talent for it, whether or not he chooses to embrace it. He practically has necromancy _running through his veins_.

"The current Viscount Montague is an archwizard with his own ward in the Other. He is the youngest person ever to become one of the Circle of Ten. The Viscount Montague has been a favorite of Our Lady of the Shadows almost since he was born, and I've heard that Our Lady also has a keen interest in Professor Grabiner. That's only natural, since he's the Viscount Montague's only son, and the very last of the Grabiner line. It's possible he could be the son of Our Lady herself," Raven said, her cheeks flushing as she fanned herself. "He has that sort of aura about him, and it would explain why no one knows the precise circumstances of his birth or maternal lineage."

"Wait, wait," Amoretta broke in, deeply confused. "Who is this 'Our Lady of the Shadows,' you keep mentioning?"

Raven gracefully feigned being startled, but it was clear she was thoroughly enjoying playing the role of sage of the Grabiner family.

"Of course you wouldn't know," she said, dropping her eyes discreetly. Then she continued on in hushed reverence. "Our Lady of the Shadows is she who rules over the underworld. She is the warm mother of all the dead who are or ever have been. Our Lady of Bones. Our Lady of the Sepulchre. Our Lady the Great Reaper. The quiet darkness and final night. She is the Queen of Hel."

"You're saying that you think Hieronymous is the son of the grim reaper?" Amoretta nearly shrieked, and her head was spinning so madly she was sure her eyes were turning circles in her head. "He may be dark and brooding, but that's just too much!"

"It's completely absurd!" Ellen agreed dismissively.

"Raven may be embellishing things just a little. Isn't that right, darling?" Pastel asked with amusement.

Raven's lower lip quivered and she looked dangerously close to pouting. "I didn't say it was certain. I said it was a possibility," she insisted. "And it is a possibility. No one knows who his mother is. It is possible that he is the son of Our Lady of the Shadows. There's no evidence to the contrary."

 _He seems to know who his mother is, or at least that he doesn't like her,_ Amoretta reflected thoughtfully. _He seems to have some strong opinions on the subject. He doesn't seem to like either of his parents._

"When you make a ridiculous claim, then the burden of evidence falls on _you_ ," asserted Ellen crossly.

"The fact that the information isn't available through conventional means indicates that it is probably a kept secret," Raven said. "To keep a secret like that is very powerful, elder magic. It's bewitching an idea so it's too slippery to hold onto, too slippery to communicate. Which leads one to imagine that if it is a kept secret, then it must be a secret worth keeping. Hence Our Most Gracious Lady."

"That's a very inconclusive case," Ellen said, crossing her arms over her chest. "You don't even know for sure that it's a kept secret. All you know is that _you_ don't know who is mother is."

"People _in_ _general_ don't know," Raven corrected with a dismissive wave of her hand. "It isn't just me." She closed her eyes and flushed, "Imagining the circumstances of his conception and birth - it's just _too_ romantic. I'm sure it was some sort of forbidden union - "

She had cupped her flushed cheeks with her palms and was squirming in her seat when another thought apparently occurred to her.

"At any rate, you seem to have misunderstood Our Lady a little, Amoretta," Raven said apologetically. "She is not the grim reaper, at least not in the way the reaper is generally portrayed in modern mundane culture. She is the lady of the dead and ruler of all the underworld."

"When a human being, witch or mundane, dies, then there's a chance that that person leaves behind an echo of themselves. That's a shade," Amoretta began slowly. "They're what give rise to ghost stories, right?"

Raven nodded. "More or less," she said, "A shade is not really the person who died, just an echo of the shape of their selves. Shades cannot grow and change. They are immutable beings, although they are not _immortal_ beings. Eventually they fray around the edges and dissolve back into the nothingness from whence they came. While they exist they populate Hel, the land of the dead, and it is from here that they are called up, through both natural and unnatural means. The Queen's body is made from the mass of them, all together. She rules the land of the dead and she _is_ the land of the dead at the same time. That is why a necromancer must have her blessing. When they call and bind spirits, when they physically raise the bodies of the dead, they are calling upon her. They are using her power and her flesh."

"Well, how could a person who's made out of all the dead spirits _ever_ give birth to a human kid?" Amoretta asked, her brows drawn together. "She must be enormous. And probably not exactly corporeal."

"That's why I said the idea was stupid," commented Ellen.

"She can and does take on an avatar form when she chooses," Raven defended herself haughtily. "They say she is very beautiful: her eyes are wells of shadows and she has hair dark like the space between stars."

"Next you'll start suggesting that Amoretta is the Queen of Shadows," Ellen predicted dryly. "After all, she's got 'eyes like wells of shadows and hair as dark as the space between stars.'"

"That's absurd," Raven huffed. "She's not nearly tall enough to be an embodiment of Our Lady. Nor does she have the appropriate _gravitas_." She looked at Amoretta apologetically. "No offense meant, naturally."

"None taken," Amoretta said, raising her hands before her. "But you know," she said thoughtfully. "My card. The Queen of Spades. Calamity Jane. Black Maria. They call her the Queen of Death. Spades is the suit of death, misfortune, and change."

All the girls stared at her blankly and Amoretta laughed nervously.

"Just an observation," she said.

"You know, you're just assuming that Professor Grabiner's mother is some weird death goddess and that there's a curse on that information just because you don't know out who she is," Ellen observed. "What's a lot more likely is that she just doesn't want to be associated with the family and that's why her identity isn't commonly known. It doesn't make any sense to assume some random and fantastic thing just because you don't have any information to contradict it. That's like assuming that Virginia is off fighting crime as a super-hero whenever she goes home to visit her parents. I don't have any proof she's _not_ a super-hero, but that doesn't mean I assume that it's a valid possibility. When it comes to Professor Grabiner's mother, I could just as soon suggest that he's the son of Carrie Fisher, or Jane Fonda, or Barbara Streisand. It's just as valid a supposition as your crazy Our Lady of Shadows theory. After all, we don't have any evidence that he's _not_ the son of Carrie Fisher or Farrah Fawcett or whoever else," she pointed out with a sniff. "Now, let's be reasonable. As I understand it, it's not terribly uncommon for one of the witchborn to not know one of their parents."

"Well, it's not unheard of," Raven admitted hesitantly.

"It's pretty common," agreed Virginia. "Although Grabby being the spawn of Ol' Deadlady McShadows would go a long way to explain his crappy sense of humor and his Count Dracula personality."

"Miss Danson! Please do not refer to Our Lady in such a disgraceful way!" Raven reprimanded.

"Look, she may be hot stuff to you because of your weirdo black mass Peabody necromancy stuff, but she ain't my patron," Virginia said, waving Raven's shock away. "And I don't plan on remaining a scuddy old shade for very long anyway, _if_ I ever become one, so her displeasure doesn't matter much to me."

"It isn't done to be disrespectful to any great being," Raven said primly. "Not only is it unwise, it is also _rude_ ," she declared, as if the latter were of much more consequence than the former.

"My point still stands," Ellen asserted. "Professor Grabiner's mother is definitely an ordinary witch who just doesn't want to be associated with the Grabiners. His father may be a remarkable person, but he _is_ a necromancer, and on top of that, I get the feeling that he's not a very pleasant person. It's no wonder that his ex-wife might choose to distance herself."

"But it's so romantic to imagine that he's the secret son of the Queen of Hel," Raven said, covering her cheeks with her hands again as she sighed dreamily.

Ellen rolled her eyes. "Just because it's romantic doesn't make it more likely to be true," she complained. "In fact, it makes it _less_ likely to be true. This isn't some kind of silly fairy tale. Princes don't appear on white horses as the story dictates."

"Professor Grabiner isn't a prince, he's a baron," Raven pointed out. "My Lord Halifax. And _if_ he came riding up on a horse it would certainly be an ebony stallion snorting sooty smoke and not a prancy little white pony covered in jingle bells and pompoms. On top of that, wizards don't come riding horses. They come riding brooms and it is common knowledge that Professor Grabiner is excellent on a broom. You have no sense of style," she finished with a flounce, and her bosom heaved. "No matter who his mother may or may not be, the fact remains that Professor Grabiner is superlative. He's brilliant. Everything about him is wonderful."

"I'm pretty fond of him, myself," Amoretta agreed with a smile. "And I kind of get why Raven thinks it's fun to imagine things that are romantic and interesting. You know, I think it would be really neat if Virginia actually was a super-hero, and she's just been hiding it all this time. Maybe she gets her super powers from eating cookies!"

"If she gets powers from eating cookies, then she must be faster than ten speeding bullets," Ellen observed blandly, and they all laughed.

"There are other romantic things about Professor Grabiner, you know, besides the history of his family," Pastel observed breathily. "Dark and romantic things. He did marry against his father's wishes, then stood trial for the murder of his wife. That's a story that has an attraction in it, the same sort of attraction that exists between moths and candle flames."

"I don't really want to talk about that," Amoretta said, her eyes downcast. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be difficult. It's just - It's not something I'm willing to discuss."

"Of course," comforted Pastel. "That is your prerogative, little kitten. Not all gossip is enjoyable, is it?"

Amoretta silently shook her head.

"You're charmingly sweet and loyal, but quid pro quo, that's to be expected, I suppose. The professor is, if nothing else, a very devoted body," observed Pastel. "He seems to be quite the one woman man. I think that the events of this spring make it perfectly clear that he would go into the abyss for the woman that he loved."

"Fight his way in and fight his way back out. That's pretty much the only thing that's good about him," agreed Virginia with a wrinkled nose. "At least he's loyal."

"I think that the little kitten has beaten you there, Raven, no matter what your considerable interest in the professor may be," said Pastel with a devilish smile. "She's already _the_ woman for Professor Grabiner. She's the end all and be all. It would be impossible to displace such a personality. You can't conjure the necessary gravity."

Amoretta smiled weakly at this profession of certainty from Pastel and said quietly, "I'm not so sure. I think that position will always belong to someone else. No matter how hard I run, I can't surpass someone whose time has stopped."

Amoretta had said it very quietly: thought it more than mouthed it. She hadn't meant to say it at all, but Pastel was like a snake charmer, and the words had been drawn out of her inner self.

Fortunately, everyone else seemed too busy arguing about the specifics of her husband's dark and romantic personality to notice that she had said anything at all.

 _Even if that's true, I have to keep doing my best,_ Amoretta resolved. _I am me, and that is good enough._

* * *

At the end of a long June day, Hieronymous Grabiner sat alone in his study, staring at his hands. There was a familiar bottle on his desk, but it was still stoppered, and although a heavy-bottomed glass sat near it, as if in expectation of an inevitability, it remained empty. He did not feel like drinking. It had grown progressively harder to retreat into the bottle since the coming of his pint-sized wife. The alcohol no longer had the same potency, and it had lost what comfort it had given. Now when he drank to get himself drunk, it was out of habit, out of sad, miserable habit. He was grasping at straws, and he knew it.

But tonight he had no straws to grasp at.

His grimoire lay open at his elbow, the parchment like soft leather to the touch, the pages figured over with loose flowing script and cramped notations, with familiar diagrams and arcane sigils. The grimoire was not open because he had been consulting it. It lay open and plundered like a grave, like a treasure box that had given up its treasures.

Grabiner was staring at his hands, and at the striking indigo bookmark that he held twined through his fingers: old fabric from her everyday robes worn soft as down, her oiled and braided hair, some silk from a ribbon or a stocking. June was old and he was old. The day was tired, and he was tired. The moon that hung above the little Breton cottage was an illusion, but she was lonely all the same. He was thirty two and would be thirty three next Samhain. It was his wedding anniversary.

It was not his anniversary with the funny little sprite who was currently entertaining her gaggle of silly friends in the spare bedroom. Although it seemed almost impossible when he considered it, he had had less than a year with Amoretta. Their first anniversary would be at the end of January, when they renewed their vows and made new promises to one another. She was his winter bride, with skin as pale and blue as snow and hair as dark as old wood.

He had married another girl under the drooping boughs of fragrant green trees when he had been but a boy himself. Violet Lore had taken him as a husband in a green grove circled by ancient standing stones worn down by time and memory. He could remember her just as she stood, her hand tangled in the crown of her hair, her brown feet bare on the mossy ground. Above them the strange twisted iron and steel and glass of the school's geodesic dome made their cathedral, keeping the heavy sea at bay. They had been married in June, a lucky time for weddings, a traditional time for their nontraditional match. It was ironic, perhaps. Both times he had been married, he had been married at school, and sworn his vows before a school master.

As when he had married Amoretta, when he had married Violet there had been no guests, no music, no public celebration. There had been no day of family and friendship and revelry, with broomstick jumping and dancing and toasts and well-intentioned roasting. He and Violet had had no guests at all, only the officiant - the eccentric headmaster - and one witness, a serious girl who happened to be his second cousin. Nonny had been their witness because she could be trusted to keep her mouth shut until they were well gone. The headmaster - well, no one could say why he did anything, except for his own pleasure, or because he saw that some entertainment could be got out of it.

Violet was his summer bride, a laughing girl with indigo-purple flowers bound up in the tight curls of her beautiful dark hair. He had come to her with empty hands, turning his back on his family and his legacy and his fortune. He had thrown away his name, and she had accepted him with her warm heart and open arms. He had sworn his everything to her, promised her all that he had or would be, made an oath of his love and his protection. It was all she wanted. It was all she had ever wanted.

And no court under the eye of heaven could strike that oath from him. They had taken her name from him, but they could not unmake his promise. He felt the weight of it still, deep in the marrow of his bones. He owed himself to Violet Lore.

 _We don't need anything but what we've got,_ she had insisted to him. _We'll make the future ourselves, with our own hands._

From anyone else it would have seemed stupid and ridiculous and reckless. For anyone else it would have surely been impossible, a chasm too great to cross. One could not make something out of nothing and wishing for trite happy endings did nothing to make them appear. 'Love,' whatever that word might have meant to him before he had met the Peerless, was not enough. He would have scoffed at the maudlin absurdity of it all. Even as a young man he had been nasty, bitter, cruel, and heartless, as tough as hard rubber. But Violet could make impossible things happen. She was an everyday miracle, witchcraft personified, and she had a jar of Great Mysteries under her arm. She could sow dragon's teeth and get six armed men. If she said that they would make the future themselves, then he believed it.

And they had. They had made their future: one long, golden summer that had lasted a lifetime.

Although no one had celebrated their wedding on the day they had exchanged vows, people had celebrated it almost desperately once the news of their elopement broke. People had celebrated _her_. They had celebrated her to the very end.

She was dead by early September, and he was chained in a foul-smelling prison in a goblin city, burning up with fever and infection, cursing himself with every breath he drew, because he had seen them smash her skull open even as he was overwhelmed by the gelatinous press of kicking bodies and gnashing teeth. He had seen her smiling that terrible, beautiful smile as the blood seeped out of her ears, and for one pale instant he had glimpsed hope, hope that she had torn out of the sky with her own hands, wrenching a way open for the both of them.

But then he had seen her head nearly struck off her neck from the force of the blow that shattered her skull and everything had gone black. He had gone mad in that instant, and he did not believe he had been sane since. It was a nightmare that he could not wake up from.

 _The queen is dead,_ he thought. _Long live the queen._

The magistrate investigators only managed to recover a few small fragments of her body from the scene of the attack: a little flesh and a few bones. The rest of it had already been sold or consumed in goblin fashion, but there was no question as to her fate. Violet Lore was dead. He knew it in his guts and blood and bone even before the grim-faced guards gave him the bare truth when he was ransomed. She was dead. All the lights had gone out and he could not light them again.

He might have killed himself then, if they had not kept him under such close guard. He might have killed himself afterwards, after the trial, when they had no further use for him, but he had never had the courage to do such a thing. Then, as now, he was a coward.

Rather than kill himself, he had simply stopped living. If not for the thoughtful intervention of one patient, insufferably nosy individual, his deliberate neglect of his own person would have surely brought about his death as effectively as a bullet from a pistol.

In the endless grey twilight of the present, he had existed, pale and quiet and somber, waiting for his own death.

It was hard to remember the exact shape of the joy he'd once held in his hands. He wanted to chart it out precisely, like laying out lines for a schematic that held the whisper of days long gone by.

Once, years and years ago, he had leaned against the dark steel grill of a safety railing half a mile toward heaven and listened to the laughter of a girl with a riot of kinky-curly hair the color of the night sky. Violet, Violet who could draw the shape of the universe with a piece of chalk, Violet who laughed at him when he took himself too seriously and who comforted him when no one else recognized his pain and frustration. Violet who listened and heard the sound of his soul, who understood him easily, even without words. Violet the casual, effortless genius, brash, heated Violet the fighter who would never back down from a confrontation with anyone, wounded Violet who needed a great deal of care herself, Violet who ran and ran until she keeled over from absolute, overwhelming exhaustion. Violet who cried herself to sleep, Violet who sometimes had terrible nightmares that left her screaming. Violet with her furious, wild heart, a mighty passion that could be as still as water.

Violet who loved everyone, who laughed at everyone, who laughed at the empty sky and the lonely moon. Violet who laughed at the madness of the world because she thought it was beautiful.

Violet who loved him the best of all.

Violet who was the pole star: the light that guided in the dark of the night.

But he had been untrue. He felt like a robber bridegroom unable to do anything but stew and consume his wives one after another, their little kid shoes covered in blood. _Have you been a good girl? Yes, I have._

The closer he got to Amoretta, the more Violet fell backward, into the past, becoming faded and indistinct, like a picture in chalk washed by a long season of rain and weather. He could not keep her. It was like trying to hold water cupped in his hands. Where Violet had once reigned as undisputed monarch of his thoughts and memories, now Amoretta ruled effortlessly, without jealousy or malice. His time with Violet had been so precious, the one treasure of his heart, but now it seemed stained and faded, streaked with old tears, as if it had been handled too much and too carelessly, until it had become smooth and worn and featureless.

He was terrified that he would lose what he had left of her, and ashamed he had lost so much of her already, but holding onto Violet had always been like trying to hold onto a star. Instinctively, he yearned to turn to Amoretta both for help and for comfort. If there was anyone in the world with the personal magic to bind Violet firmly in his heart and memories, then it was certainly the odd little girl who had come into his life so unexpectedly, the girl who seemed to throw Violet's shadow at the strangest moments, who had mercy in her pockets and forgiveness under her tongue. Amoretta knew, in a way that no one else did, when Violet would have _laughed_. If anyone could bottle the lightning that had been Violet Lore, then it was Marianne Amoretta Suzerain.

But he could not have gone to Amoretta even if he wanted to. She was barred from him, confined to a golden cage that was bounded by the bright colors of her chattering friends. Amoretta was occupied with being a schoolgirl at the moment, making warm summer memories with the other girls who had come to spend the night at Revane Cottage. It was what she ought to have, something sweet and funny and ordinary, an everyday pleasure for a friendly, generous girl who liked practically everyone.

No matter how he was feeling, no matter what he wanted, he would not drag her away from the society of her friends. He wanted his wife, but he would not ask for her, even though he knew she would come if he gave even the barest indication that he needed her. That was precisely the reason he could not ask for her: she never spared anything for herself. She was always giving her everything away, building futures for other people, solving problems that were not her own. Even now at her silly little slumber party, when she by all rights ought to have been pleasing herself, he was certain that her strange mind was turning and working, trying to puzzle out ways to make other people comfortable, ways to make other people happy.

And he knew that he was the first in her heart. If she had the resources, Amoretta would have rearranged the heavens for his pleasure. She had already rearranged her entire life for his convenience, without complaint, without showing him her fatigue and fear. She was always worrying about him. He wished she would worry about herself.

But of course, that was not the only reason he could not go to her and beg for her to conjure the memory of Violet Lore.

He had purposefully shut her out.

In the beginning, it had been a matter of course. He shared Violet with no one, least of all meddlesome, inquisitive students who were both immature and inevitably morbidly curious about his sordid past. He did not speak of Violet with anyone, not even with his friends (such as they were). Violet was his sacred icon, the hallowed place where he lit votives and dwelt long on the ugly mistakes of his past. She reigned over a private space meant for private thinking. He wanted no company there.

So of course, he had denied Amoretta Suzerain entry.

He hadn't known then, hadn't imagined that the bizarre girl who pushed herself into his business without invitation would become a permanent fixture of his life. Even as he came to understand his feelings, even as he wrapped himself up in her, he always reflexively guarded her from knowledge of Violet, from an understanding of _what_ _had_ _come_ _before_. He did it for a dozen reasons as much as he did it for no reason at all: he was in denial, he was frightened, he was ashamed, he was jealous, he hated himself.

In some ways, he had pushed the two of them apart in his life and in his mind as a way of staying sane. He had tried to think of Amoretta as an ordinary girl thrown into his care by an uncommon twist of fate. There was nothing astonishing or remarkable about her, surely, nothing that could attract the eye of judgement or bring down the scythe of the reaper. But that had all been wishful thinking, as if pretending something wasn't on fire could keep it from burning down. The devil had seen all she was and had taken what he wanted from her. Amoretta had a basket full of miracles that she offered to others with generosity and honest pleasure, a black top hat that produced endless rabbits, dice that always rolled box cars. She was not in the least bit ordinary, and that was terrifying.

To think of Amoretta and Violet in the same breath, to think of Amoretta knowing all that had happened before, it felt like courting disaster. He had lost Violet to senseless, insane violence, and now he feared losing Amoretta to a similar sort of insanity. The curse-burn on her shoulder was his most immediate concern when it came to considering her welfare, but it was not the only threat that loomed. Their future together hung open and grave. The headmistress had been right when she had said that regardless of circumstances, eventually, they would have to run. The world had killed Violet Lore, and at some point it would realize that it also wished to kill Amoretta Suzerain. He would not have chosen a different fate for himself, not if it meant choosing a fate without her in it, but given all he had experienced, he could not be optimistic.

So instead he asked her, _Are you certain that this is what you want?_

It was. She had sworn it and he could not help but believe her. If she had refused him, he honestly had no other possibilities to offer, none apart from being _returned_ , the mindwipe of a lobotomy generously offered by the magistrate inquisition. But he had known her answer before he had asked the question. He had known her answer since the moment she had careened into him that first day, when the the taste of autumn had been in the air and infinite futures had lain strewn at their feet. It would not have begun, it would not have progressed, it would not have become what it had become had he not been sure of her. He had asked the question simply to comfort himself.

 _This is what she has chosen_ , he thought to himself.

But alongside the terror of losing her to death or oblivion, there was another fear.

He was afraid that once she knew everything, she would shy away from him, even as he logically understood that she would never do such a thing. If there was one thing Amoretta had in her heart, it was acceptance. He had no doubts that she would have pardoned an axe murderer actively intent on chopping her to bits, but his heart was irrational and he was terrified of being alone. He could not lose her for any reason, and if she saw him as he had been, if she knew all that had happened, how could she possibly love him? Of course, she loved him now and he had no idea why, as he did not think of himself as a man who could be loved. He desperately wanted her love although he did not believe that he deserved it, and he was afraid that if she knew everything, then she would leave him.

But mixed with the fear of abandonment was also shame, shame that she should see him at his ugliest, as he had been then, to see him the way he had been painted at the trial, covered in filth and ink and disgrace. She had lit the desire in him to be better than he was, to be greater than he was, to be - as she had put it so ardently in front of the whole student body - a man worth loving. Amoretta had been like a refuge, a garden of sweet waters where he had hidden himself away from scorn and judgement and ridicule. She had loved him because she hadn't know any better, tousling his hair and telling him warm, funny things. She hadn't known that she ought to stay away from him because he was dangerous, because he was _an_ _unclean_ _thing_. But then things had changed and she _had_ known better, and she'd loved him anyway, because that was the way she was - wild and stubborn and gentle and sincere: bound and determined to do things her own way.

And there was also the jealousy. Violet was precious, and he did not want to share her with anyone, even the other blessed saint of his heart. It was as if he feared he would somehow diminish what he had left of Violet by sharing her with anyone, even with Amoretta. He had a jealous and tyrannical heart, that he could easily admit.

And there was also an undeniable part of himself that he hated, that he hated perhaps even more than the other parts of himself that he hated. That part of him wanted the both of them tangled up in his life at once, their rich laughter echoing in his ears. They would make trouble for him and for one another. It was a strange, morbid daydream, with Violet fourteen years dead, but it was what he thought about when his mind wandered, and he hated himself for it.

They were two women in indigo, divided by time, set apart by the span of fourteen years. He yearned to cut out the division, obliterate it, set them side by side so they could look at one another, set them side by side for his own pleasure, so he could adore them both without having to turn his back on the one or the other.

He had been speaking from his true heart when he had told Amoretta that he had no desire to trade her into the past. He loved her with a dark, potent, hideous love, a passionate, poisonous, splendid mess of emotions that he had not yet really begun to catalogue. He loved her too well to ever imagine parting with her, even if, by some devil's bargain, sacrificing her might bring back the other queen of his heart, the one who had come before her.

He would not have traded Amoretta for Violet, just as he knew, had circumstances been strangely reversed, he would never have traded Violet for Amoretta. But what he had not told Amoretta when he confessed his inequities, was that he would have sold the world to have the both of them together, sold everything bright and good, consigned it to fire and destruction.

Paradoxically, he felt that if he wanted both, then it meant that he had really never loved either, not as he ought to have, not with devotion and singleness of purpose, not as they deserved to be loved. It made him disgusted with himself, the same way he felt whenever he turned his head sharply at something Amoretta said without thinking and heard Violet in her voice, saw Violet in the way she stood, felt Violet in the vibration of her unexpected laughter.

Amoretta - brilliant, funny, genuine, kind Amoretta - deserved better than to be used as a cheap substitute for anyone, even for the incredible, inexplicable, irrepressible, impossible person Violet Lore had been. She was her own person, and she loved him in her own strange, sweet way, and she deserved to be loved honestly, for herself.

Most of the time he was sure that he did just that, loved her for all her weird idiosyncrasies, loved her heart, her sorrow, and her laughter. It was only when she conjured Violet that he doubted himself.

They were not the same. He, who had known them both more intimately than anyone else who had been or ever would be, understood this in the root fibers of his being.

Perhaps it was simply the years catching up with him. Violet was long dead, and he was getting old and tired, and Amoretta had slipped herself into the hole that Violet had left in his life without even realizing what she was doing. His years with Violet had been the best he could count before Amoretta had turned up like a penny promising good fortune. When he was with Amoretta, he was happy, and being happy reminded him of Violet, because he had no real experience with happiness otherwise.

As he and Amoretta had moved forward together haltingly, there had never been a good time to sit down and tell her about the past - or at least, that's what he continued to tell himself. It was a funny, weird, beautiful story, one that was incredibly precious to him, and he had never shared it with another person: the story of a girl who had burned brighter than the sun. It was also an ugly story, full of his own ugliness, full of pain and misery and despair. It was ugly because he hated Violet as much as he loved her, hated her for leaving him alone, hated himself for having survived her. They were vile feelings, the worst part of himself, and telling Amoretta about how he felt would mean showing her his vileness. It was one thing to hate himself with dullness and inconstancy, and quite another to exhibit his most disgusting features for her perusal. But he knew that she deserved to know what he knew, to hear about his past, to hear him tell the shape of his life with his own mouth, but he had never known how to start the story, and so he had remained silent.

He had no idea what she knew and what she didn't know, simply took it for granted that she had heard the worst from Petunia Potsdam or one of the other insufferable gossips at the school. It was impossible that she did not know _something_ about it all, and so he had kept his own words to himself, kept his heart to himself, and shut her out.

These were some of the reasons he had struggled to keep the two of them separate in his life, and now when he needed Amoretta the most, he could not go to her, because he still had no idea how to begin.

But if he had had the freedom to go to her then, he would have, despite the fear and the shame and the uncertainty. He would have gone to her because he loved and trusted her. Even if he did not know what to say, he was ready for her to know, because he was past bearing it on his own. He wanted to be held and comforted. If he went to her, she would find a way to coax it out of him. She always did.

And he would tell her gladly. It would be a relief.

But he could not go to her. Circumstance kept them apart: common, everyday circumstance. He had not told her anything about Violet, so she had no way of knowing that this day, of all days in the year, he might have need of her support. Troubles had turned up on their doorstep one after another, and Amoretta had accepted them like Christmas gifts. She had arranged her little slumber party with no way of knowing that he was tying himself in knots over a girl whose three fingers and femur were buried in a quiet English churchyard.

He was tense, and yet he was exhausted from being tense. He needed to work out his confusion somehow. In the past he might have gone for a long broom ride, losing himself in a wild chase above the tangled heath of his youth. If they had been alone at the cottage he would have ridden out, taking Amoretta with him. She had a way of wordlessly enjoying the solitude without asking him what he could not say.

And then he might have told her, all those difficult words that were so hard to tell.

At least he might have begun.

But they were not alone. Amoretta had guests. The house was full.

He could not leave her unguarded while he sulked under a tree miles and miles away. He could not run himself into exhaustion in hopes of finding some respite in dreamless sleep. He had responsibilities, and the world was a very dangerous place.

Besides, the comfort of lonely solitude had spent itself. He would find no solace outside of her.

So he would do nothing.

He could do nothing.

But wait.

He would wait.

* * *

Yawning and stretching her arms over her head as she walked, Amoretta could not help but feel that the evening had been productive. She'd had a very good time with her friends, and while she was still learning about Pastel and Raven, picking up their moods and quirks, she thought they'd all gotten along well. Despite the strange and awkward stretches, she was certain that the girls piled into the cabinet bed and sleeping on the floor of the guest bedroom knew one another a little better now, and hopefully liked one another better too.

_Sometimes it's hard showing your heart to someone._

Amoretta well understood this truth, even though sometimes it felt like her friends took for granted that her openness and willing communication were easy and ordinary elements of her character, or divine gifts bestowed by the hand of fate. Amoretta worked very hard to understand other people and share her feelings. Sometimes it was only a little scary, but often it was terrifying, and she was always afraid of being shut out and rejected.

 _If we don't go forward we won't go anywhere_ , she reflected.

It was what she knew how to do, but that did not make it easy or even necessarily successful.

 _Still, a fish can't fly_ , she thought. _At least not very far, even though it's pretty spectacular when they try._ She would have to keep trying to get through each day in the way she knew how.

At the door to the bedroom she shared with Grabiner she paused thoughtfully. The door was closed, as were all the other doors on the hall.

 _He's probably asleep by now,_ she thought with amusement and a faint touch of regret. _I did stay out awfully late. It's a shame._

She'd have liked a kiss before bed, but she wasn't willing to wake him up for it. She could bind their wrists on her own without disturbing him.

 _He doesn't get enough sleep as it is,_ she worried.

But when she went into their bedroom, the room was dark and very still. It was too still. He was not there. Amoretta was momentarily confused, but then she caught the slender thread of his presence, comfortingly nearby. She followed her heart across the hall into the library. This room was also dark and silent, and the lights didn't even flicker when she pressed her hand over the switch on its brass plate.

Still, he was in this quiet, dark room. She could feel it.

Amoretta called a witchlight up over her fingertips and moved through the gloom. The small globe of blue light threw strange shapes against the patchwork literature of the bookshelves as she tiptoed through the dark. She was as quiet as a mouse in a tomb, as if she feared to wake the restless dead, although she couldn't really say why. The darkness wasn't ominous, but it was enveloping, like a heavy mist or a deep fog. She felt like she was standing in a hour long past and forgotten, a strange time traveller bearing witness to lost sights. It seemed like a time to be still. She found Grabiner in the battered wing chair, as old and immovable as granite. He had turned the chair so it faced the seaward window, and when she came around it and he was revealed by the pale blue of the witchlight, she realized that he was looking at her steadily, his mouth a very thin line.

It was if he had been waiting, perhaps a dozen years, perhaps a hundred, like a sword held fast in stone, waiting for her arrival, waiting for her eyes to fall upon him.

It was a very uncanny moment.

The unexpected sight of him so still and strange was enough to make her yelp, and she clapped both her hands over her mouth to stifle the sound. Still, a thousand curses did not rain down upon her for breaking the secret silence of time. He didn't move at her outburst, didn't change expression. He was simply watching her.

In his lap was his grimoire, and his hands were laid carefully over it. He made no move, but Amoretta could sense that he was terribly tense, like a wire coiled so tightly it might break from the sheer strain. The glint of the witchlight off the gimmal ring seemed to reflect in his eyes.

Amoretta swallowed nervously.

When he spoke, his voice was low, but even. "Have you finished?" he asked quietly.

"Finished?" she asked in confusion.

"With your friends," he said lowly. "Have you finished for the evening?"

"Oh," Amoretta let her breath out with a relieved smile. "Yes, I have," she said. "Half of them are already asleep. Sorry I stayed so late, but we had a lot to talk about."

Grabiner shook his head briefly, a sign Amoretta took to mean that she owed him no apology. Then he got to his feet slowly, pushing his grimoire off his lap and leaving it in the chair.

He moved close to her all at once, bending to slip an arm under her knees. He had picked her up before she could even squeak, as if she weighed nothing at all, as if he required no permission to invade her personal space so unexpectedly. He held her very tightly, so tightly that Amoretta sensed again that it was not a time for words, and that he could not have managed any even if he had tried. It was a moment when his presence was so heavy that it almost physically _hurt_. He relaxed his grip on her enough that his force wasn't uncomfortable, but his heavy presence remained and she felt like she was falling into a deep hole dug by a curious rabbit, a hole that emptied itself at last in a dangerous garden of madness and playing cards.

As they crossed the threshold to their rooms, Amoretta felt the glimmer of magic and saw a brief line of spelltext skirt the edges of the room.

It was a ward. He had already warded the room.

He left her on the bed, and turned his back on her to lock the door.

When he returned to her, he ducked his head low, speaking directly into her ear.

"Amoretta," he said, his voice low and dark and strained. "I need you. _Now_."

"Hieronymous," Amoretta answered uncertainly, feeling the tense edge of his desperation even as he leaned into her. He was breathing hard.

"Please, Amoretta," his voice was ragged with hurt and confusion. " _Let me_."

Her heart was beating madly, and it seemed as if somehow, she had completely lost the faculty for speech. His naked fear and yearning had stolen her breath away.

He was so tense that he was trembling.

"I know it isn't right, to expect you to - " he was hoarse and distraught, his breath hot against her ear.

She couldn't speak, even now, but that didn't mean she had no way of saying what she meant. She cut him off, one hand on his chest, the other on the back of his neck as she leaned up to kiss him.

It was a gentle kiss, shy, because she wasn't very sure of herself. Her own hand trembled as she captured the fingers of the hand he had on her shoulder and pulled it down to her hip, sliding it down around to the small of her back.

 _Is this all right?_ she was asking silently, lovely in her uncertainty and wistfully sweet in her genuineness. She was still hesitant to take the lead, and although she had no way of knowing his mind at that moment, to him, her shy, hesitant willingness was like a narcotic, a drug of terrible, enveloping potency. _Like this?_ she wondered, her teeth pressed against her lower lip.

 _Yes_ , he was stumbling over himself to say. _Yes_.

At her movement, relief seemed to overwhelm him, and she was swept away by the fierceness of the kiss that opened her mouth. It was like being bowled over by rough surf, stormy and inelegant, and she could feel his want boiling over as he pressed her back onto the bed. He was hungry and desperate, and his keenness cut her to the quick. He was coursing and they were both driven. It struck them through, lean and wild and wicked. They were two points on a line that split the sky and then burned itself into nothing against the air and the earth, a fragment of iron that left an immense crater.

She had asked him before: _what is desire?_

They were still struggling to find their own answers to that question, lost in a messy confusion of touch and scent and taste lit only by her nodding witchlight.

But then he had drawn back slightly, as if giving her space to breathe, and she felt his thumb as he traced her cheek.

In the glow of the witchlight, she could read it all in the sharp panes of his face, in the thinness of his lips pressed together: the mixture of anticipation and fear and weakness and quiet strength. He was lost, but he had caught hold of one certain thing, and that was _her_. In the light and the darkness they came together, throwing shadows that painted the inside wall of the bed with the shape of their straining pleasure and confusion.

"Amoretta," he said, and his voice faltered. "I love you."

She found her voice at last, and when the words were born they were warmed by a smile as faint as a candle in the gloaming. She was shivering at all the strangeness, the newness, and the dizzy familiarity -

"I know," she said.

He had heard the words he needed, and the next thing Amoretta felt was his mouth on her hip bone. He had pushed up her pajama shirt and pulled down the bottoms enough to expose a warm triangle of bare flesh. His mouth never left her even as his hand slipped up, under her shirt to palm her skin, the pad of his thumb a promise as it brushed over a nipple.

It was unclear to her whether he meant to kiss her or bite her as his mouth moved across her stomach, as the line between the two seemed to be very vague based on her experience with him. At times like these she wondered if he differentiated between the two at all. She whimpered his name as she felt him set his teeth against her other hip bone.

At times like these, he did not.

During the course of exploring her stomach with his mouth he had, with her distracted assistance, managed all six buttons of her pajama shirt, so when he leaned over her to kiss the hollow of her throat she was nearly bare, her pajama bottoms having been cast off as things had rapidly progressed.

She was already breathing fast. Her pulse had quickened the moment he had picked her up in the library without a word, and now, as he leaned over her, tense and strained, she trembled. Here in this place there could be fear without fear, a shiver that came from a feeling of eager dread and anticipation. Things would move. Things would change. It would make her weak, but here in this place, she could be weak. They could both be weak.

He kissed her again. He bit her. He handled her. Along the line of her ribs, at the triangle of her shoulder, her fingertips, her knuckles, the nipple that he had promised - She tangled her fingers in his hair and held onto as hard as she could because the sensations were hard to manage, difficult to withstand.

And then she was worried that she had tugged too hard on that handful of his hair because he had pulled away from her, and she opened her mouth to apologize, panting, but then it turned out that he had only pulled back to look at her, seeming dazed himself, dazed and hungry, desperate.

"You don't understand," he said, and his voice was low, and seemed somehow pulled very thin, as if he were fraying at the seams. "You _are_ a miracle wrapped in skin."

And then he drew back from her and she was left yearning, with no dark head to caress or catch hold of, no handful of hair tangle her fingers in and tug on.

"Hieronymous?" she wondered.

And then he bit the inner curve of her thigh.

Through it all, he had not been slow, he had not been patient, he had not been measured. He had been in want of the taste of her, of the feeling of her in his hands, of the sound of her need and of her pleasure. Now, on his knees under her pale, flickering witchlight, he laid his cheek against her thigh and rubbed against her, skin on skin. The soft cotton of her panties were crumpled in his hand, and he ran his thumb over them absently.

But then he dropped them, and they fell onto the ground along with all their other discarded concerns, and they were forgotten, because he kissed her again.

When he kissed her again, leaning into her, he felt her move against him as she sobbed out something incoherent, and he felt the muscles of her slender thighs tighten. He would have her, every bit of her, every drop. He would drink up her blood, taste every bit of fluid and sweat, devour her essence. He needed it, to drown himself inside her, to forget the pain and the despair and the terrible loneliness that had eaten at him for years. He would take her over the hill, lift her up, knit his fingers through hers when she was light-headed and dizzy. He would take her to the brink, and then they would crash through it. It was like chasing the horizon, but they would make it, they would make it.

At some point while he had been feasting, fierce and delirious, her flickering witchlight had gone out, leaving them blanketed in darkness. It had happened at a moment when his tongue had been active and ardent, and then he had _slipped a finger inside her_ , and she had curled up like a dying thing, her knees locking against his shoulders as she sobbed.

In the darkness, he drew away from her again, and she was left trying to catch her breath as she heard the sound of him discarding the rest of his mortal troubles. Weakly, she rolled onto her side, then the mattress moved. She reached out to find him in the darkness, and when her fingertips met his skin - something hard, his knee? - he covered her hand with his own, pulling it briefly to his mouth, then running his hands over it, over her fingers, her palm, her wrist, her forearm, pressing against it, to feel all the muscles and bones. It was intense, that pressure, a learning pressure, so fierce that it almost hurt, but instead it was good, it was good.

Then he had laid her hand down in his lap and she was wondered what she was meant to do next as her palm caught something wet and sticky - ah, there it was.

She was just beginning a thoughtful exploration when she heard a soft sound: he was muttering. A moment later his own witchlight blossomed and she was startled, caught like a criminal in a searchlight, with her hand - how had he put it at one point? _In flagrante delicto._

She might have died. Her embarrassment at that moment was so terrible that death would have surely been preferable.

She was about to stammer out an awkward apology, her face red, her blood so hot it was steaming the inside of her skull, cooking her brain like it was in a hot pot, but then he interrupted her.

"I wanted to see you," he said honestly, and his voice was low and rough and hoarse - and the way he looked at her -

The way he looked at her -

She could have borne any shame, any hot embarrassment. She would have done anything, at that moment, in that place, not without shame, not blind to it, but riding on it, lost in it, beholden to it, worshipful of it.

She wore shame like a mantle, and she _reigned_.

"Come to me?" he asked, and she did.

He lifted her into his lap and as she settled there, she could feel the length of his penis under her, in between her thighs. Tentatively, she squeezed her knees inward, and it felt very good, having the weight of him under her. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly, and she could hear him breathing in her scent: sweaty, animal, warm, and alive.

"You," he murmured quietly, into her ear, "You."

He felt her tremble again, and for a moment he wondered if this was too much too soon, if he needed to guide her, but then she had risen up on her knees so that she was above him, tugging on his hair to tilt his chin up as she kissed him.

It was an abandoned kiss, loose and without structure, a kiss felt down the spine more than in the mouth, and he ran his hands over her, feeling the shape of her body bent over him. He wanted her so badly in that moment that he thought it would kill him.

When she pulled away from the kiss, she was thoughtful, but deliberate. She fumbled around a little bit, moving slowly, and he kept his hands off of her, letting them hover a few inches over her skin, ready to catch her if she slipped, if she needed his support. And then, and then -

The light flickered again and she whimpered as she guided his penis inside her, slowly, slowly, and she shivered as she arched her back, and he caught her, one hand against her shoulder blades, one over the hard angle of her hip. It was maddening and it was impossible. It was something that could barely be stood, like loving her so hard that he couldn't breathe, that he couldn't live, but although he was desperate for it to end, he was also desperate for it to continue: this moment with her on top of him, inside her, her arms loose around his neck, this could be all moments, the one moment, the last moment, the all moment, _everything_.

But then she began to move, and it was no longer one moment.

She kissed him again, dizzy and needy and drunkenly generous, and she felt him press his thumbs hard against her hip bones as he dug his fingers into her giving skin.

"Touch yourself," he urged softly. "Touch yourself the way you want to be touched."

In the ordinary light of day, she did not think she would have been capable of doing such a thing while he watched her in the pale, bluish glow, but now she had no anxiety, no fear that she could not do what he asked, no fear that she would make a mistake, make him unhappy, make him withdraw. She was still slow, uncertain, but where she touched herself he moved to kiss her if he was able, and follow her with his hands if he was not. When he followed, he didn't brush her hands off, as if they were no longer needed, but ran his own hands over them, feeling her slender finger bones and the edge of her short round nails, feeling her flesh where it was tender, feeling her skin: warm and smooth and damp.

She was soon sobbing as she moved, no longer slow and tentative, but violent, passionate - she had caught the edge of desperation herself, and she held onto him hard, her nails marking the skin of his shoulders and arms even as she shivered, feeling him, feeling him. She was leading them, taking them where they were going, and she could feel that he wanted that, _he wanted that_.

"Tell me," he urged, and the sound was hard and pained. " _Tell me._ "

Tell him what? What did he want? What could he want her to say? What words could she make, now, now, pushing and pushing and they couldn't stop, but then it was obvious, it was so obvious, and she sobbed it out.

"Hieronymous," she panted, "Hieronymous, _I love you_."

She was gone then, at that moment, had passed the horizon line, and he felt washed with incredible relief as he felt her seize and tremble, and then he was laying her back, underneath him, pulling away, because he couldn't, he couldn't -

And then it was done in a spatter of sticky fluid over her stomach and chest.

He let out a deep breath then and collapsed next to her, utterly spent. He pulled her close to him, kissing her ear, her shoulder, the palm of her hand.

"My own," he murmured as she moved to curl against him, "My own. I love you," he buried his face in the tangle of her dark hair even as he repeated himself, as if it were a spell, as if this were a way to hold this moment and keep it still for all time.

They lay together quietly as they recovered, and he stroked her hair and she traced abstract shapes against his chest with her fingertips. At last he seemed to have returned to his senses, because he sat up and was soon tending to all the marks his kisses had left on her.

"I had the feeling that you liked seeing them," Amoretta remarked idly, still relatively prone.

"I do," he answered shortly, then paused and added, "But I have no desire to embarrass you, particularly not in front of your friends."

"Oh," she noted, so startled at the thought that she flushed again. "Oh, thank you, then," she added shyly.

He exhaled sharply at that and then silently shook his head.

"That's not something you have to thank me for," he said and he kept his eyes on his task. "You don't have to thank me for being decent."

"I don't have to do anything," she answered without thinking, rolling her eyes. "So you better get used to the fact that I'm going to keep doing what I want."

He froze at that, with his hands above her, froze as if he had been struck dead. He looked at her very steadily, and his look was heavy and full of care. It was like a wire had been unexpectedly pulled off a record. The silence was very loud.

"Hieronymous?" she asked in confusion. "What's wrong?"

"It's just - " he faltered and seemed unsure of what to say. "It's just the way you look sometimes. I don't know how to explain it. I don't think I can, not in a way that makes any sense. It's all right. It's gone now."

He shook his head, and she saw him shiver and she wondered, but she did not know what to ask.

He got out of bed, apparently fully recovered from his moment of phantasm.

"Here," he said after rummaging in his bedside drawer. "Eat this." Amoretta felt something small and round pressed against her lips.

She expected chocolate, but when she opened her mouth and he popped it in she found it was hard and sweetly sour.

"A lemon drop," she said, and her voice had the shape of a lazy smile.

"Just let it melt on your tongue," he agreed as he carefully wiped her down with a towel.

She did as she was told and watched him absently as he cleaned himself up. As the lemon drop dissolved in her mouth she became aware that she was parched as well as weary.

"Can I have something to drink?" she asked. "You made me very thirsty."

The corner of his mouth twitched, just barely, and his tone was dry but affectionate as he replied, "I could say the same."

She laughed, a soft sound in her throat, and he nodded as he pulled on his robe.

 _I ought to write that one down_ , she thought.

"Yes," he said. "I'll call for something."

Water was ordered and Amoretta wrapped herself up in a tangle of the sheets as it was delivered, and hid in one corner of the bed. She did not feel that she was in a state to be seen by anyone.

Well, anyone _excepting_.

He returned with her water and patiently waited on her until she drank her fill, then put the empty glass on the side table, threw his robe over a nearby dressing chair and crawled into bed again, apparently completely exhausted.

"Come close?" he asked softly, and she immediately squirmed across the bed and into his arms.

The desperation had cooled and they were tangled up together in sweat-damp sheets that were as soft as crepe paper, but he still held her tightly, as if unwilling to lose the touch of her skin under his hands.

He spoke haltingly, as if he were ashamed of himself, "I'm sorry," he said quietly, "It - it always calms me. Thank you for being patient with me. I'm sorry you had to see me like that."

He tucked her head under his chin, as if he could not bear the weight of her judgement.

"I'm very happy that you trust me enough to show me that side of yourself," Amoretta answered honestly, pushing against him gently until he let her move so that she could look at him.

"I would trust you with anything," he admittedly painfully, and at that moment it was certainly true. She might have asked anything of him and he would have answered her: humble, bare, and without thought. He would have conquered the world on her behalf.

"You don't have to apologize for anything," she said peacefully. "I wanted it," she said slowly. "I wouldn't have said yes otherwise." Her eyes swept the room searchingly. She wasn't sure where to look. "It was so heavy, I wasn't sure I could catch it," she said hesitantly, then her smile blossomed as she said, "But I did. I'm glad I had the courage to try." She took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. "When you fall, reach out for me," she said. "And I'll fall with you until we don't have to anymore, until we both recover our balance. I'm not afraid," she reminded him.

He rolled over and held her tightly again, burying his face against her warm skin. She stroked his head gently, feeling the silkiness of his dark hair between her fingers, and it was only then that she realized he was crying, trembling and crying.

"Hieronymous?" she asked in confusion. "What's wrong?"

" _I'm terrified_ ," he confessed into her neck, and she could feel his mouth against her skin as a sob wracked his body. "I'm terrified of losing you."

She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him as tightly as she could.

"You won't," she insisted.

He held her hard then, so hard it felt as if he wanted to pull her fully into himself, as if he could plant the seed of her heart into the soil of his body. The breath was squeezed out of her lungs, and when he at last released her, she had to gasp for air.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, sounding guilty. When his arms tightened around her again, he was more gentle.

"Don't be," she said softly, tangling her fingers in his hair again. "I'm not that fragile. I won't break," she said with a smile, then she held him her own self. "I'm not going anywhere, Hieronymous. I love you. There's nothing I want more than this."

"Because you're absolutely insane," he said quietly, and sounded exhausted. He wasn't crying any longer, and his shudders were slowing.

"I think we're both a little crazy," she agreed with a weak laugh. "I think part of love must be madness, just like part of it's anguish, and part of it's fear. Love isn't just sweet and decorative, something to put on a shelf, like a hummel figurine."

"It seems like everything I give you is ugly and grotesque," he said tiredly, letting his cheek rest against her chest. "I wish I could give you something you deserve, something worth having, but everything I have is strange and worn and broken. I can't even tell you that you are the first, the _only_ , _my only_ ," he said weakly, "Because you're not. I can't give you what I don't have. I wish I could."

"No you don't, and you shouldn't. I don't care about being the first, or even the last," Amoretta answered honestly. "I'm very greedy, as you're fond of pointing out, but that's not the shape of my greed. I want to love you as much as I want, as much as I possibly can. I want to love you in my own way, in my own time, passionately, deliberately, ludicrously, even," her mouth curved into a slight, sweet, secret smile. "That's what my heart wants to do, and honestly, I'd do it whether you approved or not. Hieronymous, I don't need you to pretend to be something you're not, or that things are different than they are. My heart is full of the difficult man who cries because he's afraid of losing me. I'm afraid of losing you too, you know," she confided soberly, as frank as a girl who regularly steals from the cookie jar, confesses, is punished, and promptly steals again. "It'd stop my heart cold if I ever really slowed down enough to think about it."

She brushed her lips against the top of his head, "I love all the things you give to me," she said with warmth, "Because they're from you. I wouldn't want them from anybody else." She paused thoughtfully as she stroked his head, "But you ought to know that there isn't any way you can really lose me, and that's not just me whistling in the dark. That's practically graven into the skin of the universe. We wrote those words ourselves, together," she said seriously. "It's an incontrovertible fact, and you know it. We made a vow. I'll be with you when no one remembers the state of Vermont, and the North Pole points toward Iota Cephei. Even _if,_ I mean, even _when_ something happens, to you, to me, to the both of us, you won't lose me, not really. I won't lose you. Even if we're apart a little while, one day you'll turn around, and I'll be there, as much trouble as I am now, or maybe even more. That's as sure as pulling a straight when you need it." She shook her head briefly.

"It's your 'little while' that terrifies me." Although he was quiet, he could not keep the distress from his voice. "I somehow feel that if I lose sight of you, then I will never find you again. The gimmal oath may be an oath to shift the nature of the universe, but to me, it's not enough. It's one slender thread that binds us, and the world is great and terrible," he sounded resigned. He gave a brief, bitter laugh before adding, "And here is the point where I sound obscenely and offensively sentimental as I tell you that I can't live without you. It may seem like maudlin hyperbole, but I believe it's true. You are the beat of my life, as sure as the blood in my veins. I have been a dead man walking," he said and his voice was low and still. "I cannot do that again. It isn't in me to survive it."

Amoretta smiled awkwardly. "Well, I guess it's good that you won't have to, then." She held up her hand to indicate the golden ring on her third finger. "Whatever snuffs out my candle will snuff out yours too." She sighed and said, "I don't want to imagine my life without you either, honestly. It terrifies me when I start to get the shape of it, and I always shut it out, like a big coward, I guess," she laughed weakly, then turned her deep eyes toward him fully as she slipped her fingers through his. "But I can't be misplaced like a slipper, Hieronymous. And there's no use worrying about when our time will come up. What we have is what we have. I'm your today. I'm your tomorrow. I'm your once upon a time. I'll be here even after the stars fall."

"I want to believe that," he said quietly. "I want to believe that all I have to do is look to find you. I - " he faltered. "I've become very accustomed to you." He closed his eyes briefly and seemed to be thinking something over seriously. When he spoke, his voice was soft and nostalgic. "In the beginning, all I could think of was taking care of you, you funny little thing." He sounded wistful. "I didn't notice, I never noticed, that you had begun taking care of me, even from the first moment. I thought you were sweet and silly and certainly _trouble_ , but I didn't understand it then: your strange, deep strength. I don't really know when I began leaning on you," he was speaking very softly into her neck. "By the time I realized how much you meant, it was like I had stopped being a two-legged creature, and we had instead become some strange four-legged thing. But I do know that I never intended to burden you with my private concerns, whether or not you loved me, whether or not I loved you. You were too young. You had been hurt too badly. You were too gentle and soft. You were too horribly silly - "

" _Hieronymous_ ," Amoretta cut in, faintly disapproving.

"But I was wrong," he said with a rueful laugh, giving her another gentle squeeze. "I was wrong about you, the way I'm always wrong about you. Every time I mistrust you, I am wrong. You may be young, but you're intent and devoted and passionate. You have been hurt, but you refuse to be defeated, you refuse to be controlled, you refuse to submit. You've been fighting all this time, a hard fight, a fight unseen, shouldered grimly, but without complaint, with no accolades to reward you other than your own self-respect. You may be gentle and sweet, but you aren't weak, you aren't passive, and you're nobody's fool," he then grew very dry as he gravely finished, "You are, however, _incredibly_ silly."

Although she had been warmed up by his quiet praise, when he became sardonic she ducked her head and set her teeth against his scalp.

He made a sound of surprise and alarm and swatted at her.

"You little cat," he complained. "Don't bite my head because I've said something you find inconvenient. _It is nothing but the truth_."

"I'll bite you again!" Amoretta threatened, and he rolled over to pin her to the bed underneath him.

"You're quite a pacifist, you little gorgon," he snorted, "If you cannot remain still, _then I will keep you still._ "

"Don't think that line will work on me, _professor_ ," she retorted with great self-satisfaction, "Because now I know exactly where that threat leads and I'm not exactly _dissuaded_."

"You know, I'm not obliged to do anything pleasant to you when I tie you up," Grabiner remarked blandly. "I could just truss you up for my own peace of mind and then leave you to your own devices."

Amoretta gave up the fight and admitted warily, "You're just awful enough to do that too."

"I'm satisfied that in this case, my reputation precedes me," he said with grim amusement, then shook his head as he grew serious again. "I loved you desperately, really, although I had no intention of doing so. You were a will-o-wisp I had to follow. I loved you like a man drowning, like a man drowning who does not realize that he is drowning. But what I did not understand in those queer, early days, before I began to expect you whenever I turned around, before all of this, my clutching heart and you with your arms open like you could catch the world," he said, "Was that for all your silliness, for all your youth and shyness and uncertainty, you have always walked beside me. I never expected it, that we would come to be the way we are, but I ought to have. You have been yourself from the beginning, although I did not then ken your depths. You will always follow your own counsel, and you will always do as you think is right. No one, not Jove, not Yahweh, not even Death himself can stop you once you've decided on something."

"Maybe McGruff the Crime Dog or Smokey the Bear might," Amoretta suggested with a slow smile. "Or Woodsy the Owl. After all, I'm pretty sure I oughtn't commit crimes, set forest fires, or litter." She thought about it briefly. "Or maybe I might possibly commit _some_ crimes, but only as an act of civil disobedience, and only then if it's really necessary."

He did not roll his eyes at her. Instead they softened, and his mouth turned up a little at the corner, as if he found her familiar humor to be a great comfort.

"You are fierce and deliberate and you are kind when a weaker person would be indifferent, or perhaps even hostile," he said. "You are as strong and omnipresent as the sea and as wide and beautiful as the sky at night, Marianne Amoretta. You're still growing into yourself, it's true," he admitted lowly, "But you are already someone who orders the world around herself, whether you know it or not. I am very fortunate," he faltered again and it took a moment for him to steady his voice, "That you thought to love me. I can't imagine why you do - "

"I can't help it," Amoretta admitted with a quiet laugh, a faint but tell-tale blush rising in her cheeks in response to his poetic and rosy affections. "I mean, I don't want to," she said ruefully, her smile slow and still. "I don't want to help it. I never have wanted to help it, but I know that I couldn't help it even if I wanted to. Everything about you - all the ugly and beautiful things, all the terrible, wicked, wonderful things - I love all of it. It's all here, in the catalogue of my heart. I can see it all, when I look at you, even the things you can't see yourself, I think. If you really do think I am as marvellous as you say - no," she waved him off as he started to interject, "I do believe you. I know you're honest, Hieronymous - but if you really do believe all those things, then you should know that I am who I am because I'm lit up by the fire of your heart. I can be who I'm meant to be, because of you," She tilted her head to the side. "I love you. I would in any circumstance, I think," she said thoughtfully. "If you dug ditches, or never spoke, or if you couldn't read and I had to teach you, or you'd done away with a lot of little orphans - I can't seem to help it at all, loving you. There's something about your stubborn, awkward, hard-headed certainty that snags against the stuff of my self and captures me. You'll always be my magnificent bastard," she said with another slow, sly smile. "That's why I promise you, if you're ever lost," she swore with warmth and sincerity, one hand fondly against his cheek. "I'll find you, time after time."

"You're an impossible little thing," Grabiner said with warmth and he leaned forward to brush his lips against her forehead.

"If I weren't impossible," she admitted with amusement, "I can't see how I would ever get anything done. Being impossible is requisite for being your wife. I think i've become more impossible than ever since meeting you. I suppose I ought to thank you for that," she finished with a wry smile.

He was still for a moment, and then he said very quietly, "Amoretta, you can be very strong, so strong that you seem immense and it's difficult for me to remember that you're small and fragile. I admire and value your strength and courage and faith," here he faltered again as he shifted his eyes away. "But what I want more than anything," his voice had fallen away into a whisper, "Is to be your strength when you have none. Don't be afraid of being weak. I will be here to catch you - "

Amoretta's eyes softened and her brows drew together in a strange mixture of love and bewilderment.

"Hieronymous - " she began, but he shook his head, cutting her off.

"Things will become more complicated and difficult as time goes on," he said softly. "That is an inevitability. That is part of being alive, and a particularly virulent complication of our own lives. We will sometimes find ourselves in unfriendly waters. Wherever we go, whomever we go among, I want you to understand that you have nothing to prove to me. I ken the splendors of your unfurled soul." He closed his eyes briefly and a faint flush crept into his cheeks as he admitted, "That is not merely my duty but the greatest pleasure of my life. When things are hard and you cannot bear it, come to me. That's," he faltered again and ducked his head, "That's all I want. Even if you gave me nothing else, it would be enough that you let me be the one to put my arm around you and hold you when you tremble. Be strong for everyone else, show them the astonishing wonders of your marvelous, sublime heart, but for me, be weak, be mortal, show me your tears, let me calm your terror."

Amoretta put her arms around his neck then and drew him down against her, so that their foreheads touched and his hair fell to tickle her face.

"I suppose that's what it really means," she said, her voice sweet and mellow. "To accept your protection. I do," she said, then shook her head slightly. "I do accept it. I'm grateful for your care." She closed her eyes briefly. "I love an awful lot of things in this world, Hieronymous Grabiner. I love a lot of people. I love them so much that it feels my heart will burst, sometimes. But more than the sun, more than the moon, more than the green grass, or a kitten's heartbeat, what I love the most in the world is you."

"Yes," he said, and his voice was low and dark and sweet. "I know."

* * *

The morning after the slumber party, William walked his sister back to the school, where their mother waited for the both of them. It was a long way through the quiet woods, and they were mostly silent as they walked. It was clear that neither of them really knew what to say.

They both had an inkling of what was to come, and neither of them were looking forward to it.

William knew it would be a heated confrontation with his mother, who would not be an easy opponent. This time that was coming was something that he had been putting off for months, perhaps years. He was not straying idly, but deliberately taking his own path, choosing to turn from the fortunate son into the wayward son. It would be a hard break now because it would be so shocking to his parents. The last time there had been an incident where he had deviated from what was appropriate, from what was expected of him, had been when he had beaten Damien Ramsey bloody. A gradual rebellion, a gradual assertion of his own independence and desire for choice might have been easier, but looking at Donald, he had the feeling that it wouldn't have been. He had never had the freedom of making that choice. Any minor rebellion would have been quashed, or he would have become a heretic sooner rather than later. It was not really anyone's fault, he thought. He loved and respected his mother and father. He could not really blame his parents for not knowing what it was that he wanted, because he had never told them.

But then, he had always had the feeling that they simply did not want to know. He did not think it was a subject that interested either of them.

Virginia dreaded what was coming because she knew that her mother expected that she had worked some sort of brainwashing magic on her older brother, forcing him to come around to her the family's preferred viewpoint. Virginia could not have leveraged her relationship with her brother to manipulate him into changing his mind. Even if she had known how to begin doing this effectively, she wouldn't have. She couldn't have. It was all very hard and complicated. What her mother wanted from her was beyond her doing, even though she knew that her mother loved William, that her mother wanted what she thought was right for William.

It was hard to be William, she thought. He was so good at everything, but then their parents expected so much from him. Donald was pretty much a lost cause, she thought - she thought that they thought. And she was - she didn't know what she was. Her mother praised practically everything she did, and she was good at things, not everything like William, but certain things. They were stricter with William than they were with her. She wasn't sure if it was because he was first, or because he had greater potential than she did and they were just trying to draw it out, or if it was because she had been so sick when she was a baby. It was unfair, but she didn't know that she could do anything about it. She had very little bargaining power with her parents when it came to things like this.

And it was true that she didn't want things to change. She wanted to always be able to depend on her caring, responsible older brother, the brother who always taught her all sorts of interesting things in a way that she could grasp easily, the brother who would defend her from anything, the brother who was always there with a reward when she wanted to celebrate having finished something that was hard for her. She didn't want that brother to disappear. She couldn't imagine what her life would be like without him. He had always looked out for her, been there when her parents were busy with work. He was the one who knew how to make hotdogs and potato salad and macaroni and cheese just the way she liked.

And now he was going to go away.

He was going to really go away.

She didn't want to think about it.

At the school, they were directed to the faculty lounge, where there mother sat alone, reading a book.

"I'm glad to see that you've come to your senses, son," Matilda Danson said, rising to greet them as they arrived. "I'll farspeak Sylvia once we get home. I'm sure that if I explain your rudeness and apologize for your behavior, she'll still be willing to have you. Leave your contract with Mr. Grabiner to me. I am confident that I will be able to negotiate your exit." Her eyes swept to Virginia. "I knew that you would bring him around if nothing else would. Good job, cricket."

Virginia squirmed where she was standing and looked sidelong at her brother and seemed about to take the difficult step of confessing that she had in fact not brought her brother to the desired mental location, but William held up a hand to stop her, then briefly let it brush over her shoulder, giving her a ghostly smile before his mouth firmed again.

"Mother, I'm not coming home with you, and there's no need for you to farspeak Mediator Plymoth," he said steadily. "I'll do it myself and make my apologies. I have been rude, and that was wrong of me."

"Well, I'm glad your extended vacation with your ex-professor hasn't done anything to soften your brain," she said, and seemed to be eyeing them both very closely. "You'll be heading directly to the city then? I am of course pleased to hear that you're willing to take the initiative to apologize for your mistakes. You are an adult now, and it's to be expected that you do so, but given your recent behavior - " she paused and then let the final weight descend slowly and inexorably. "I was not optimistic."

Virginia shifted uncomfortably again. " _Mama_ ," she begged, with downcast eyes.

William glanced at her sideways and saw that she wasn't going to speak further, and shook his head.

"I'm not going to the city, mother," he said quietly. "I intend to remain here and fulfill my duties as Master Grabiner's apprentice. I will apologize to Mediator Plymoth and make it clear that I have taken another position. That's what I came here to tell you."

There was absolute silence in the room for several seconds while William waited for his mother's reaction.

It came like the blade of a guillotine.

"Excuse me," she said, and her voice was very low, "But it sounded like you just told me that you were refusing the position that you've worked for years to secure, that you've all but made a bonded oath to accept, and that you plan to remain here playing squire to a delusional alcoholic crackpot."

"Mother, I would ask that you not defame my master," William answered, keeping his own voice low and even. "I am staying here because I believe this is the best course for my education. You will get nowhere with me by being disrespectful to Master Grabiner."

Matilda Danson waved him off, "Forgive me," she said declaratively, and she threw the words as easily as she might have thrown a medicine ball. "I am certain you already feel some loyalty to him, but regardless of his qualifications as a master, the fact remains that you already had a position when you swore an oath to him. Mediator Plymoth has been expecting you for days - "

"And I will apologize for my behavior, mother," William cut in again. "There is no excuse for it."

"You are correct, William Danson," she said brusquely. "There is no excuse for your behavior, nor any defense for it. You have dishonored yourself and embarrassed our family with your reckless behavior. I did not rear an _oathbreaker_ \- " she said, this last accusation hissing through her teeth.

"You did not," William corrected sharply, interrupting her. "I will remind you, mother, that I had made no oath to Mediator Plymoth. I have broken no oaths."

"I witness against you, William Danson." Matilda Danson came down brutally, almost before he had finished speaking. "As recently as three weeks past I heard you myself assuring Mediator Plymoth that you were soon to fill your post."

"Agreed," William answered back immediately. He knew well enough how his mother operated, and how he would have to combat her if he was to have his say. "But I did not at that time, nor have I since sworn an oath of any kind to Mediator Plymoth."

"But she had _your_ _word_ ," Matilda Danson said, and William could see her balling her gloved hands into tight fists as she worked to steady and control the force of her anger.

"Circumstances changed," William answered flatly. "And it is custom that I have the right to withdraw from an informal arrangement if circumstances change sufficiently. They have. Therefore I intend to call Mediator Plymoth and make my apologies."

"A position with Mediator Plymoth will be the _making_ of you, William," his mother answered, and he could tell that she had shifted gears and was now pursuing a different angle of attack. "It is an incredibly sought after position. I had to _fight_ to get you there, even with you being _my_ _son_. _You_ had to fight to best all the other applicants. I cannot believe that you would throw your future away on a childish tantrum."

"I'm not throwing a tantrum," William said. "I know that the position with Mediator Plymoth is an excellent one, and you're right that the competition to qualify for selection was very difficult. I am sure that the person she chooses as her next apprentice will get the benefit of an excellent finishing education, but that person will not be me. I have the position that I want."

He saw her eyes narrow again and she spoke very slowly. "Would you please deign to speak to me rationally for a five minute span?" she asked. "At no point in the last _decade_ have you given your father and I any indication that the position with Mediator Plymoth was not the one that you desired for yourself."

William's mouth turned down briefly, then he forced his features back into even blankness.

"You're right," he admitted. "I should have had the courage to tell you before I left home, but I didn't, and I'm sorry." He shook his head briefly, then added, "I should have had the courage to tell you what I wanted years ago, but I didn't. I am here now because I want to be here."

" _Rebellion_ ," Matilda Danson spat back at him. "What have I done to spread the seeds of rebellion at my own feet?" she demanded. "We have provided you with _everything_ , and now you throw it back in our face because you've decided that this farce of an apprenticeship is what you want? It is shameful behavior. It is selfish and self-centered. You have a responsibility to your family - "

" _Mama_ ," Virginia squealed in distress and moved to go tug on her mother's arm, a desperate plea for her to relax her terrible onslaught.

"Virginia," Matilda Danson said, and the word came like a death knell. " _Sit_ _down_."

Virginia made a pathetic whimper in protest, but then immediately sat, and stared hard at her lap.

"Mother," William said tiredly, "I'm never going to be a mediator."

"What did you say?" his mother asked, her voice very low again. She was daring him to repeat himself.

"I'm never going to be a mediator," William said again, this time with more strength. "I respect you and the other mediators very much. It's an important job, and a very necessary one, but it's not what I intend to do with myself."

"That's what this is?" she demanded, "It's a half-baked rebellion against the establishment? You've spent years preparing for this apprenticeship - "

"You've spent years preparing me for the apprenticeship," William answered glibly, and immediately regretted it, because he could see her eyes glitter. She had him.

"Do not think I will allow you to throw your future away because you've developed a juvenile taste for freedom. It is puerile, narcissistic, self-satisfying, and self-aggrandizing. You have clearly decided to do this purely to defy me - "

"No," William cut her off sharply, at last raising his voice. "I decided to do this because this is the future I want to pursue. I am doing this for myself, not to defy you, not to defy father."

"You are correct, boy," she said critically. "You are certainly doing this for yourself, and for no one else, with no regard for the difficulties you cause for the people you owe your duty to, to the people who depend upon you - "

"I cannot be responsible for everyone," William retorted angrily. "I must be responsible for _myself_. I must choose _for myself._ If that is selfish, _then I am ready to be selfish._ "

"I am disappointed," she said, and the words lunged forward like a spear with her shoulder behind it. "And I am shamed. I didn't raise you to act this way - "

"Clearly _you did_ ," William answered, sounding keen and driven. "Because here I am."

"WILLIAM. ROGER. DANSON." It was bloodcurdling. In her seat, Virginia's blood was curdled, and she wasn't even the target of her mother's fury. "So you wish for me to understand that all of this is my fault, that this is of my making," his mother had risen to her most towering heights, and she looked down on him despite the fact that the top of her head only came up to the bottom of his nose. "That I _forced_ you down this path because it was my will - "

"You didn't force me," William denied, taking a deep breath and trying to calm himself. "I did what you wanted because that's what I thought I was supposed to do - "

"It _is_ what you're supposed to do," Matilda roared.

"After thinking it over carefully, I came to a different conclusion," William said softly. It was clear that it was done, that it was becoming more completely done the longer that they spoke. He would finish it, then. "I want to thank you for all the guidance you've given me over the years," William continued on, cool and remote. "You did give me many opportunities that I am grateful for. I am aware of the fact that I enjoyed a privileged life. I am sorry that I can no longer be the person that you wanted. I do love you, and father, and Virginia, and Donald, and I'm sorry to have caused you so much trouble and embarrassment, but I have made my decision."

"And you're prepared to live with the full consequences of your actions?" Matilda asked, her own voice deathly quiet.

"I am," William answered and met her eyes.

They stared at one another for several seconds and at last Matilda Danson snapped her fingers, the sound dull and muted by her gloves.

"Very well," she said, "From now until you renounce this ridiculous charade, the doors of our home are closed to you."

"Mama, no!" Virginia had desperately reached up to tug pitifully on the tail of her mother's jacket. "Mama, _please_ no - "

"I'm sorry, Virginia," she said, and William heard his mother's voice soften slightly for a moment as she turned to comfort her youngest child, but then it was steel again. "I am sorry, but he has made his decision, and I will abide." She returned her attention to him. "The doors of our home are barred to you. You have been turned out. We are no longer interested in hearing from you, unless it is regarding the dissolution of your current oath of apprenticeship. You may contact me in regards to legal matters only. When you are ready to admit your foolishness, I will hear you. Until that time, you are unwelcome. Until that time, you are not my son. This is all you have lost, William Danson. "

William nodded once and then said the word that sealed his fate.

"Witnessed."

Matilda Danson was still for a moment, and then she took a deep breath.

"If this is what you have chosen for yourself, then you are correct, this is your decision, and I will abide by it, as you have declared that you are willing to accept the consequences of your actions," she said. Then she crossed to where he stood, extended her gloved hand to him and he took it and they shook, firmly. "Good luck in your future endeavors, Mr. Danson," she said, and then she left the room, pausing briefly at the door to glance back toward Virginia, who still sat glued to her chair, staring hard at her lap. "Don't be long, Virginia," she said, and then she closed the door gently behind her.

As the latch clicked closed, Virginia was off her chair with a force that knocked it over. She launched herself at her brother as if she were intent on competing in the high jump, and it was only with difficulty that he caught her.

She was already sobbing.

"What's going to happen now?" she cried. "You can't come home? You can't come home any more? Why? Why? This is so _horrible_."

"I know," he said, trying his best to comfort her. "I'm sorry."

She held onto him desperately, squeezing him so hard it hurt.

"Why does it have to be like this? Why can't you just do whatever it is that mama wants you to do?" she wailed.

"Because I don't want to," he answered simply, and she beat on him weakly with her fists. All the pro wrestling moves in the world could not have adequately expressed her turmoil. She was lost at sea in the storm of herself.

"I _know_ ," she complained angrily, then sniffled very loudly. She clearly needed to blow her nose. "Why can't mama just let you do whatever it is that you want to do?" she demanded.

"Because she doesn't want to," William answered, squeezing his sister more tightly, an attempt to contain her anger and sadness.

"Gah!" howled Virginia in wild frustration, "This sucks! This sucks this sucks this sucks! Can't you just sneak home?" she begged. "Sometimes?"

William smiled weakly at that and felt the tears coming to his own eyes.

"You know I can't," he said honestly.

"I know!" she cried as she dissolved into sobs again, hanging on his neck. "I know," she repeated, snuffling. "I know, I know. I know you had to grow up and go out on your own. I knew that you'd go away, like when you went away to school, and this time you wouldn't come back. I knew it. But I still didn't want it to happen - not now. Not so soon. I just want us to keep being a family - "

He eased her down, back on her feet and put his hands on her shoulders. "We'll always be family, V," he said seriously, brushing the tears out of his own eyes. "No matter what mom says about it. You know that, right?"

She rubbed at her eyes with balled up fists. "I know!" she repeated again, still clearly upset.

"But you're right," he said with a quirk of a smile at the corner of his mouth as he laid a broad hand on her head to ruffle the coils of her hair. "You can't keep people from growing up. I know it's hard, since I'm leaving home first, but it'll be all right, you know? It'll be all right. Things change, but that's okay."

"I don't want them to change," she complained, sniffling, then frowned hard. "But I guess it must be really important to you to keep studying with that weirdo Grabby, otherwise you wouldn't have made such a fuss about it. I can't say I understand it. Sometimes I think that I don't really understand why _anybody_ I know does _anything_ ," she said, scrunching her face up, "But I can tell it's important. I can tell it means something to you. I want you to do what makes you happy, William. You're the best person, the best big brother, and you deserve to do what makes you happy. You deserve to be happy. I just wish it wasn't so - I don't know!" She threw her hands up in the air in frustration, then gritted her teeth together. "But you're right," she said, and screwed up her face into what she clearly felt was a very determined expression. "I'm going to be okay. You just do your best! You don't have to worry about me."

William couldn't help but grin at her face of hardened determination, because she was still a little snotty and clearly needed to wipe her face on something other than her sleeve, but she was doing her best, just like he was. It wasn't perfection, and maybe that was a relief all by itself.

Amoretta had been right. His sister wasn't a baby that needed his constant coddling and protection. She was brave and fierce. Maybe distance would give him the space to see that. Maybe being without him would give Virginia the chance to grow into herself even more than she had already.

"Thanks V," he said with a familiar smile. "I really appreciate it." He paused and then added, "I'm really proud of you, you know?"

Virginia blinked back fresh tears and shouted, "No fair! I'm proud of you, you big dummy!"

He laughed at that and then said, "I love you, V. Take care of yourself, okay?"

She hugged him hard again and promised that she would write, wished him luck two more times, and only left when he fairly chased her out.

"I'm going to get you a super great present for your birthday!" she called over her shoulder as she pelted off down the hallway. "Like, way better than socks - even like the best, _yellow_ socks. So you better be prepared! I might even buy you a live alligator or something!"

"I'll be waiting!" he called back to her, and he saw her rub her sleeve over her eyes again, but she didn't stop, and then she was around the corner and gone.

* * *

Walking back to the cottage door felt like returning from a battlefield. William felt completely and totally exhausted. Facing off against his mother had been incredibly difficult, but he had done it, and now it was done.

Although he was tired, his heart felt lighter. It was one more step.

His master met him at the door when he was again granted admittance to the capsule world.

"What will you do, boy, if you find that you cannot bear this place?" Grabiner asked him seriously. "You are here on trial, but I believe that you may have permanently closed a door. What if you find yourself at a dead end, with no exits?"

"Then I'll make an exit," William answered levelly. "The only place you can't exit from is the grave."

It was unclear what Grabiner had expected from his trial apprentice, but William's words drove the grimness off of the older man, if only briefly, and he laughed.

"Good answer, young man," he said, and offered his own hand, and flooded with relief, William took it and they shook. Grabiner threw his thumb over his shoulder vaguely. "Go on. You've earned a few hours off."

"Yes, sir," William responded gratefully, "Thank you, sir." His relief was so palpable that Grabiner clearly became embarrassed because he flushed faintly.

"Get going and stop thanking me before I have you enchant the chickens pink one feather at a time!" He flashed a grim smile as he continued, "And be ready, rat. Tomorrow morning you're going on your first long run with me. Don't imagine that you're going to have a good time. I hope you're an early riser," he threatened and William saluted him.

"Bright and shiny, sir," he said and then took off with a grin.

William passed Amoretta in the front garden as he went and she gave him her smile. He patted her head as he went by, the same way as he had patted Virginia's so recently, and the movement gave him steadiness and grounded him in familiarity. He didn't stop to wonder if Grabiner might have called it 'being too familiar,' he simply did it, and he felt better for doing it.

Amoretta watched him as he went around the side of the cottage and disappeared behind it, apparently headed for the sea shore. Then she went to meet her husband as he came in from the door to the outside world.

He waved a hand dismissively in the direction that William had gone and asked, "Why is it that you do that? The two of you. Salute me, I mean." His brows drew together. "Do you think it's funny?" he demanded with a mixture of confusion and mild vexation.

"I can't speak for the private, sir," Amoretta responded with a snap of her own bootheels and a pretty salute, "But as for me, your aide-de-camp, I can say with full confidence that I do it because it is hilarious."

His grimoire came down lightly on her head and he said wryly, "Well, you little imp, I have to give you points for honesty, if nothing else."

"You're a really wonderful person, you know," she said with affection, moving to take his arm.

"You certainly seem to think so," he agreed dryly.

"It's not just me - " she sang out, but he cut her off sternly, still embarrassed.

" _Amoretta_ \- "

"It's all right. I won't pester you. I know when to stand down," she said with a laugh, then she laid her head against his shoulder and admitted, "I'm very tired," she said quietly. "Do you think we could go take a nap?"

He brushed his fingertips lightly across her forehead to push the hair out of her eyes and answered, "Of course."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've already started working on the next chapter, but it will take a bit to finish.


	12. Ten: Skip to the Ending

 

Days or minutes had passed at Revane in relative peace and tranquility. Of course, the likelihood that many hours at all would pass in a calm and nondescript way when they passed in the vicinity of Amoretta Grabiner was very low indeed, which was why Grabiner was not all surprised when the quiet of the summer was quite shaken to pieces by the arrival of a letter in Revane's pretty blue mailbox.

The arrival of a letter in and of itself was not of particular notice. Besides the mountains of thank you notes that had been dispatched by means of the trim little mailbox, it also saw a considerable amount of incoming traffic as well. Amoretta was a dutiful correspondent, and wrote lengthy letters to her father, to Steve Kenyon, to Logan Phifer, and to various other undesirables, and they seemed keen to respond in kind. Her pen was always flying, and she was forever sharing her adventures and misadventures with her loyal readers. The post was required to fly simply to keep up with the narrations of her escapades.

Therefore, the fact that there was a letter was not of great import.

Even when Grabiner noted the sender and recipient of the letter, he was not overly interested. It was from Marguerite Belle, the grimoire binder, and it was addressed to him. Amoretta's relapse, and the chaos that had reigned in their house due to the coming of first William Danson and then Raven Darkstar, had made it so he and his wife were overdue to pick up her grimoire. He was overdue for several other errands in the city as well, and so it was time to think of arranging a return trip.

He imagined that the letter was a business document reminding him to collect his purchased goods.

But instead, the letter was short and cryptic.

"Come at once," it said. "And bring the girl."

He might have been reluctant to answer such a dubious and suspicious summons if he hadn't put a great deal of trust in Marguerite Belle.

But he did trust her.

She had bound his grimoire. She had bound Violet's grimoire. She was calm, sensible, and stable. She was also an excellent secret keeper. As a grimoire binder, she had to be.

* * *

 

He broached the subject of their return trip to the Court of Figs and found that his wife was enthusiastic.

"I still get to take Ellen, don't I? Don't I?" she wondered, wriggling around in their bed in the throes of pure delight. She was anticipating sharing an interesting and exciting excursion with a close friend. Amoretta very much liked giving gifts, and this was a gift she had longed to give Ellen since the time Grabiner had first suggested it.

"Of course you can take Ellen if you like," Grabiner said indulgently. It pleased him to give his wife something that made her happy in such an uncomplicated way. He had some vague worries associated with their return to the Court of Figs, mainly related to Marguerite Belle's cryptic summons, but he pushed them aside. They were not great fears. He would be mindful of them, but not allow them to push him into paranoia.

He had kept Amoretta under lock and key for the entire summer as an effort to keep her safe. He wanted to give her another day trip, another chance to explore the vibrant and interesting hive of activity that was the Court of Figs. He wanted to give her some part of the ordinary happiness of a regular summer vacation.

But that did not mean he was willing to be foolish, or to take chances.

"I'll ask Rail to come along," Grabiner said idly. "He's always got a yen to travel, and he can take you where you like during the day, so you're not forced to follow along behind me as I run errands."

A flush rose in Amoretta's cheeks as she leaned forward slightly. "You know," she said, "That I don't mind following along behind you, right? I'd follow you anywhere." She promised herself so earnestly that a faint flush rose in Grabiner's own cheeks and he hastened to cover his shyness by teasing her.

"Don't imagine that I have any desire to keep you from your life's work - that is, following me around like an addled puppy," he said, reaching over to muss her hair terribly, so the shorter bits stood up alarmingly. "But you have a responsibility to entertain your guest. Miss Middleton will hardly want to sit and play cat's cradle with you in half a dozen lobbies while I pay bills, although that certainly is a charming and wholesome picture."

"That's true," admitted Amoretta thoughtfully, cupping her chin with her hand. "I can't always manage Jacob's Ladder without getting my fingers all tied up either." Then she apparently left off thinking about string as she came to a realization. "Oh!" she said, "And there's Raven too. We can't just leave Raven at home while we all go have a good time at the Court of Figs. That would be terribly rude. Like you said, I do have an obligation to entertain my guests."

Grabiner rolled his eyes. "Yes, I had imagined that you'd also want to take Miss Darkstar with you, given that she remains our houseguest," he said. "That's acceptable. Indeed, that is one of the reasons I intend to ask Rail to accompany us. There is no feasible way to fit four humans into Rail's jeep. We'll need a second car. He's acting head of the school whenever the headmistress is away amusing herself at other people's expense. I'm sure he can borrow one of the school vans."

Amoretta giggled, "So our trip will begin with grand theft auto-oh- _oh_! I have to tell you, Mr. Grabiner, _I am excited_."

"Yes," he said dryly, "I'm sure you are."

"You know," she said, and the wheels in her pert little head were obviously turning, which was _most_ _certainly_ concerning. "Since we're taking a van, we'll actually have room for a few more passengers. I'm sure Pastel would love to go with us. She's been stuck at school all summer with no real chance to do anything fun. Her mom just sort of left her at the academy like it was free daycare, which is sort of awful, if you ask me. And it would be great to take Manuel with us too. I'd like to thank him for sending over all those snacks when we had the slumber party, and I'm sure he'd have a great time, because hello, _food_ _mecca_. His snacks were really, really good - "

"Absolutely not," Grabiner said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I know you love to be generous, Lady Bountiful, but if I let you have your way, you'd invite the whole county. I have no intentions of chaperoning a field trip for the academy's resident student body."

"That's not - " Amoretta began in consternation, but as she thought about it, she was forced to admit, "That's probably not much of an exaggeration."

"Yes," said Grabiner rolling his eyes. "I know. I am _somewhat_ familiar with your character."

"Oh!" Amoretta cried again as she made another realization, "Oh, but what about William? We are taking William, aren't we? It'd be awful to leave him at home."

"Of course I plan on taking him," Grabiner said negligently. "He's my fetch and carry. He won't be going to enjoy himself, he'll be going to _work_."

Amoretta was relieved.

"That's fine," she said. "After all, I think William actually really enjoys himself when he's working."

Grabiner grunted and found he could not really disagree with his wife.

"Yes," he said, dousing his witchlight as he settled down into bed, "He does seem to be a masochist."

In the darkness, Amoretta giggled as she burrowed into the blankets.

"Then I guess it's no wonder that he idolizes _you_ ," she said, and her wicked smile was so wicked that it could be clearly perceived, even in the dark. She had a Cheshire smile, one that lit up the nighttime.

"Oh yes, thank you, you are hilarious," Grabiner said dryly as he reached out under the covers and gave her bottom a pinch. "What would I do without your rapier wit? Life would be so dreary."

Amoretta squealed as she was pinched and cried, "Keep your hands to yourself, Mr. Grabiner, or I'll call the authorities!"

"Yes, my darling," he drawled out with indulgent superiority, "But what you have utterly failed to take into account is that here at Revane, _I am the authorities_."

And then he rolled over and captured her.

* * *

 

It was not difficult to secure Rail Finch's participation in their outing, and so early one morning they all met in in the parking circle of the school and loaded up into their respective vehicles. Out of deference to the elder teacher, Grabiner offered to let Professor Finch drive his own car.

"Trudy and I do need some quality time together," Rail agreed, then clapped William hard on the back, so he staggered forward a step. "What do ya say, kid? You up for ridin' with me? A warning," he said seriously. "I am going to _sing_."

William agreed to act as Finch's copilot, and Amoretta hopped up on the hood of the cooling jeep to say, "Professor Finch, are you just going to sing acapella the whole way to the way station? I love Gertrude, but she doesn't have a radio," she pointed out.

"Necessity is the mother of invention, my girl," Professor Finch said with the pleasure of an accomplished teacher.

He lifted Amoretta off the hood of the jeep and brought her around to the side of it, where she saw an old radio had been duct taped to the floor boards. There were two different coat hangers wired to it in a creative configuration that Amoretta guessed was meant to improve its reception.

"That is _very_ inventive," Amoretta agreed with a laugh.

It was probably also illegal, but being as the 'new' radio was probably the least objectionable element of Rail Finch's beloved car, Amoretta decided to leave it at that. He had apparently been getting away with driving Gertrude unmolested by the authorities for years. She expected he had his own way of getting out of vehicle citations, likely just as creative as his new radio installation.

Grabiner did a brief walk around check of the van, and Amoretta followed on his heels like a puppy.

"All in order," he said, satisfied. When she saluted, he rolled his eyes and swatted at her behind. "Go get into the van you awful little beast," he ordered.

She complied promptly, but not without her own impish giggle.

Amoretta settled into the passenger seat of the van and then briefly looked over her shoulder into the back.

Ellen and Raven had opted to sit in different rows of the van. She gave them an awkward smile and inwardly hoped that forcing them to go on a day trip with one another wouldn't prove to be more distressing than it was enjoyable. Amoretta wanted them both to be happy.

_We'll just have to see how it goes,_ she thought to herself.

Grabiner had finished adjusting the seat and the mirrors and turned the key in the ignition. As he did, Amoretta produced her wand and cast a _Farspeak_ spell, prompting Grabiner to raise an eyebrow. Amoretta winked at him.

"Breaker one nine, this is the Granite Fiddler," Amoretta said, speaking into the head of her wand as if it were a microphone. "The front door's open. How about the back door? Any Smokies? I mean, _other than the one I married,_ come back."

"Fiddler, this is the Ozark Polecat," answered Rail Finch, as plain as day. Rather than Farspeaking back, he had used a vocal transmission and projection spell. He was apparently committed to being authentic. "That's a negatory. The back door is wide open, pretty gal. Let's get this convoy rollin'."

"You heard the man with the plan, my beautiful English rose," Amoretta said to Grabiner with enthusiasm. "Let's get this show on the road!" To her wand she said, "That's a big ten-four, Polecat. We'll be leadin' the way eastbound and down. Let's make the highway run."

Their trip to the Vermont way station was relatively uneventful. It was somewhat challenging to hold a conversation with the girls behind her, who were both engaged in their own timepass activities anyway. Ellen had a book of crossword puzzles, and Raven was knitting.

As their vehicle had the benefit of a radio that was not simply taped to the floorboards, Amoretta endeavored to keep them all entertained by acting as their radio jockey, turning the dial to catch whatever station excited her fancy. Grabiner generally allowed her to do as she pleased with the dial, except when she located bluegrass on a public radio station.

"That will give me a headache," he complained.

"Pickin' and grinnin,'" Amoretta replied coyly, with a grin of her own. "But Hieronymous, I just want to sing you the songs of my people," she insisted.

"Well then, sing me some songs of your people that aren't about moonshine and vagrants," he said dismissively.

She obliged him by turning the dial and several times announced she had found their perfect love song, which she then proceeded to sing along to, loudly. These songs were never particularly appropriate, but given Grabiner's experience with his wife, he was not entirely surprised. Still, her mischief unfolded within acceptable limits, and therefore, he allowed it. He could be very permissible when he was feeling content and indulgent. She had been nothing but devastatingly accurate when she had suggested that he had a _taste_ for her misbehavior. He let her enjoy herself at his expense and hoped that their other passengers weren't intolerably discomfited between her entreaties for him to wake her up inside and her confession that his touch left her crazy in love.

In between songs she sometimes talked to Rail Finch over her wand, and they carried on coded conversations about the non-existent and entirely invented police presence along their route as well as discussing their favorite toppings for hash browns.

"Watch out, Hieronymous," the irascible professor warned over his spell after Amoretta had spent some minutes enthusing about chicken fried steak, "I swear, I'll carry that girl off."

"You're welcome to try," Grabiner replied dryly. "Keep her for a few days. There is no question at all in my mind that you'll return her once you realize that she doesn't have an off switch."

"Built to last," Amoretta agreed triumphantly. "Takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Like a rock. I keep going and going and going - Anyway, Professor Finch, no offense, because I do love you and all, but you aren't nearly horrible enough for me. I only like _especially_ horrible men, not just moderately horrible ones. I might be interested in helping you rob a casino or something though."

"Well, you know, I like a woman who knows what she wants," Rail Finch guffawed over the spell. "I'll let you know if I get the hankering to plan a heist."

In this way, accompanied by spirited vocal performances, passionate discussions of diner food, and terrible jokes, they eventually made it to the isolated way station, and then into the Court of Figs.

* * *

 

Given the urgency of the lady bookbinder's letter, Belle, Book, and Candle was the little party's first stop. Both Ellen and Raven were interested in observing the transaction, which was certainly a novelty to them as Pentachromatic witches, but Rail Finch held up a hand to forestall them.

"Grimoire impression is private business," he said. "It's not a thing you share with another person willy-nilly, even accounting for the fact you're good friends. You all are gonna stay right out here with me until they get finished with their business, then you all can play all you want for the rest of the day."

Somewhat disappointed, the girls agreed, and so they and William remained outside the shop with Professor Finch.

Grabiner held the door for his wife, and then followed her in.

Inside the door, he paused.

"Professor Finch is correct. This is a private thing," he said slowly. "It's perfectly within your rights to handle this grimoire impression entirely alone. I won't be offended. I will wait over here if you like."

Amoretta laughed at that and shook her head.

"I'd like to share it with you, if that's allowed," she said shyly.

Grabiner nodded, apparently relieved.

"It's allowed," he said, and then he led her to the main counter.

Marguerite Belle had been watching them closely from the moment they had come in the door.

"Well," said Grabiner, folding his arms over his chest. "Your letter certainly got my attention. As a summons it was nothing if not _dramatic_. I assume you have something you wish to discuss?" He paused briefly before adding, "I am sorry that we weren't punctual in retrieving the grimoire, but _circumstances_ _arose_." He glanced sidelong at his wife who punctuated his statement with a warm and carefree shrug, exaggerated for effect.

"What can I say?" she said mildly, "I have a full social calendar. Fuller than I expected, certainly," she clarified.

"I do have something I wish to discuss," Madame Belle said gravely, and Grabiner frowned.

"Do you want to explain what this is all about?" he asked, and it was clear he was beginning to be cross. "If you have something to say, madam, then please, _get_ _on_ _with_ _it_." His uncertainty was beginning to build toward dread, and the bookbinder's queer mood did nothing to reassure him.

Madame Belle shook her head and then said. "It is a thing that must be seen to be understood."

"What are you talking about?" he demanded, bringing the flat of his hand down against the counter sharply.

The sound was enough to make Amoretta jump. She glanced at him sidelong, an attempt to find her footing in this unexpectedly uncertain situation, but she found that all she could read when she looked at him was wariness and keenness, as if he were a big, dark cat who had hunkered down in the shadows, waiting. He did not look at her.

"I have seen a ghost," Madame Belle said. "I have seen a thing that should not be." She looked briefly at Amoretta, thoughtful, appraising. "It is not I who must explain this thing," she said.

Grabiner frowned at this cryptic answer, but the bookbinder raised one finger for silence and moved swiftly to the front door, where a brush of her fingertips engaged the physical lock as well as a complex locking spell and several wards that fell into place as they were tripped as contingency spells. The world inside the grimoire binding shop had now been effectively cut off from the outside. Outside the shop, Amoretta saw Rail Finch glance briefly over his shoulder through the painted window, but then he turned his attention back to the students who were clustered around him. They were still engaged in animated conversation.

With her wards and locks in place, the proprietess disappeared into the back of the shop for a moment.

When Madame Belle returned, it was with what was presumably the grimoire, although Amoretta could not be certain, since it was wrapped in a thin piece of deep green velvet. Amoretta couldn't suppress the shiver that ran up her spine at the sight of it.

_Why all the secrecy?_ she wondered with confusion and mild dread. _I thought this was - I thought this was supposed to be an ordinary thing: solemn, perhaps auspicious, private, but beyond that_ ordinary _, a regular epoch of a witch's life._

Beside her, Grabiner seemed to have become even more tense. His hands were at his sides, but she could read his unease in the way that he stood: tight, controlled, giving away nothing of himself.

Anxiously, Amoretta's eyes moved from Grabiner, to Madame Belle, to the wrapped grimoire, and then back to Grabiner.

At last, Madame Belle's dulcet voice split the air as she laid her fingertips lightly against the counter, near the wrapped bundle. The words she spoke were powerful, and ominous.

"And now, Madame Grabiner, you may open it."

Amoretta shifted in place nervously and glanced toward her husband, looking for a sign of assent.

His lips were thin and pressed together, but this time he caught her uncertain glance and gave her a slight nod, an attempt at reassurance.

"Go ahead," he said quietly, his voice low, as if he feared that speaking too much and too loudly might break some unknown enchantment and bring damnation upon them all. "It is your grimoire. There's no reason to be afraid."

Amoretta's eyebrows went up briefly, her own telegraphed message of, _That's easy for you to say. Have you felt the atmosphere in this room?_

Grabiner silently shook his head, briefly gesturing toward the counter.

_Regardless of your uncertainties, we all have personal responsibilities,_ she could hear him say, although he did not say it in words that could be heard with anything other than the heart. _I cannot do this for you._

Mildly chastised and discreetly comforted, Amoretta reluctantly nodded, then turned to the wrapped book, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes.

When she opened her eyes, she moved swiftly, seizing a corner of the worn green velvet and whipping it off, like a stage magician performing the tablecloth trick unrehearsed with a pyramid of stacked, crystalline champagne glasses ready to fall victim to her dubious talents. It was best to move quickly in such a situation of mounting dread and anticipation, Amoretta thought, particularly considering she had _an_ _audience_. It was best to have the thing done, like ripping a bandaid off a half-healed wound, or taking a shot of particularly disgusting cold medicine.

The faster it was done, the sooner it would be over with, and Grabiner would relax and smile at her, and Madame Belle would apologize for putting them on, and then they'd all spend a wonderful day in the city, and they'd have a marvelous time, and a miracle of friendship would occur and Raven and Ellen would settle their differences and everything would be splendid, right as rain, hunky-dory, _jim_ - _dandy_.

And the cloth came away easily.

It was all done like it had been nothing at all, and Amoretta was left staring at her grimoire.

In the end, it seemed a bit anticlimactic.

Amoretta had not known what to expect given Madame Belle's insistence on secrecy, but the book that lay before her on the counter seemed neither rare nor extraordinary. It was lovely, and her fingers itched to touch it, but it seemed in no way bizarre or strange or dangerous. In fact, what she felt most when she looked at the book was a feeling of warm familiarity and blissful nostalgia, as if she had suddenly recalled a memory that was both precious and dear.

_How wonderful_ , was her first thought. _Everything is wonderful. The world is a good place._

_That is mine,_ she thought, letting her fingers delicately caress the handsome spine of the book, as if it were a cat that might appreciate being petted. _It's exactly right. It's exactly true. It is perfect. It is perfect. It is mine._

Although she was captured by how the grimoire looked and felt, like a child enraptured by a new and very expensive toy, at last she dragged her eyes away from it and offered Marguerite Belle her smile, her thanks for a job exquisitely well done.

And that was the moment when she realized that something was terribly wrong.

Marguerite Belle was not looking on with the pride of a sublime artist and craftsman. She was watching Amoretta with dark, deep eyes, watching her intently, her mouth drawn into a tight purse. It was a dead-eyed stare.

And then she spoke, leaning forward, bracing both her hands on the counter, on either side of the grimoire.

" _Who are you?_ " she demanded, the question hissing out between her teeth.

Amoretta inadvertently took a step backward in panic. Reflexively she looked at Grabiner, hoping to ground herself, hoping to be given some context, hoping to be given some understanding of the situation.

But then she wished she hadn't.

She might have given anything, anything she had between sky and earth, anything at all to take back that foolish look. It was like Orpheus glancing over his shoulder and losing his bride's future, or Psyche lighting a candle to glimpse her lover's face and leaving drops of wax behind on the pillow. It was a thing that should not have been done, a betrayal of expectations. It gave her knowledge that she did not wish to have.

She had leaned too far forward and fallen down a well.

Because.

Grabiner had his hand over his mouth and was bent forward like he was going to be physically sick, one hand braced against the counter for support. When she moved, his eyes darted to follow her, as if he were an animal that could not see color, but only motion. When his eyes found her, she felt as if her body had been pinned to the ground by a spear that had fallen from heaven and pierced every one of her organs before rooting her forever to the hard earth.

He was a maddened, haunted creature: his thoughts racing and spilling over one another, spinning away into a vortex that fed oblivion. The look in his eyes was a mixture of grief and horror and shock, and that was terrible in and of itself, but worse, far worse, was the gut-wrenching _revulsion_ that she could read on his face, potent and terrible. It was a look of profound fear and absolute disgust.

Her shoulder hurt awfully in that moment: a sharp, burning pain, and the pain beat on her; it beat inside her head, it beat inside her body. The pain was like the beat of a drum, or the drum of her heart. It was pain that burned like fire, or it was the terrible slow cold burn of ice. It felt as if she had just been stabbed, or shot, and the wet heat of pain bloomed like a flower whose epicenter was the foreign handprint on her shoulder. She felt the fear in her body, like cold water pouring down her back, and she felt seizing tremors where her spine met her skull. She stumbled backwards, afraid, afraid, because at that moment she knew a very primal truth.

She was alone in that room, despite the two pairs of eyes that tracked her as if she were a beast.

_Run._

_Run._

It was what every nerve in her body was shouting at her.

_Run far. Run until you are safe from this._

It was terribly dangerous, she knew that truth in the tangle of her guts. She tasted desperation on the back of her tongue, and it was bitter, the chemical taste of adrenalin that was screaming _run_ _run_ _run, run or you will die_. _Hide_ _yourself_. _Hide_ _yourself_. _Hide_ _yourself_. She felt very near the edge of death in a way she had never felt before, despite how near to that knife's edge she had come in the past. Before, no matter how death loomed, no matter what threatened, _he_ had been with her. Now - it wasn't that Grabiner had simply let go of her hand. It felt as if he had thrown her down, thrown her as far away from him as he could, as if she were an unclean, monstrous thing, a deadly thing, like an asp in the bosom, or a spider that killed with one easy, wicked bite.

_Run,_ her body said.

_Run away from this fear. Run away from this pain._

Amoretta cradled her head in her hands and whimpered. She was going to be sick.

But then she couldn't be sick, she wasn't even accorded the privilege of being sick, because Grabiner's voice cut the air in the room, like sound that can be heard even in a vacuum.

"Open the book," was all he said, his voice low and grim. He was leaning against the counter with both hands for support, but she could see the muscles in his back spasm and twitch. He was shaking. He was terrified. He was terrified of her. _Of her._

Amoretta drew her arms against her body, wrapping them around herself as she trembled.

"I don't understand," she began in confusion, trying to explain her feelings, trying to find purchase. The ground felt so slippery. She felt as if she was falling into a trap with no way out, into a bottomless hole, and she would fall and fall, entering that liminal space between life and death, felt only after one has fallen and before one hits the ground.

Grabiner shook his head once, an absolute denial. "Open the book," he repeated. "You must open the book."

Run. Run where? She could not run. There was no place to go. Here, in this room, was the only sanctuary she had, and it had been barred to her. His arms were not open.

She did not run. There was no point.

In all Amoretta's pain and fear and sorrow, she could not be blind to Grabiner's torment. He was at war with himself. She could see that easily when she looked at him. He was fighting back the horror and disgust and trying desperately to regain the position that his responsibilities demanded of him. He had sworn to protect her, and now he could offer her no comfort and that was killing him. His arms, stretched toward the counter, trembled as he tensed his muscles hard.

Something about him said as plain as words, _It will all be over once you open the book._ _It will be done and finished. Open it. You must open it. I cannot bear for this moment to go on longer than it has._

She felt like laughing then, a sad, melancholic laugh of resignation. It was a laugh to laugh when the stars fell, and the world was done. It was somehow over, then. It was somehow over before it had ever really begun. She would ring the whistle of the end.

She smiled weakly and said, "If that's what you want."

It was what she could give to him, even if he wanted nothing else from her: some gentleness, some kindness, some respite from all that was terrible, which at the moment, included _her_. She would carry her pain and fear and this terrible loneliness. She would carry it herself.

She would open the book.

She moved back to the counter slowly, and the whole scene was strange, as if it were a weird, uncanny dream: a film projected through sea water. Her fingertips caught the pebbly skin of the cover of the grimoire, traced across the gilt figures of stars and the embossed pattern of vines and caught the corner where a metal stud had been mounted to protect the shape of the book.

And then she opened it.

She opened the book.

Across the pale vellum, she saw letters form, bleeding up out of the skin of the book as words raced across the page in her own handwriting.

_This is the first day, the book said. This is the last day. It cannot be a beginning, not even a beginning of the end, because that happened long ago. Did my beginning begin with a conjunction? Of planets of words of lives of things - Am I truncated? A suffix lacking substance. Seamed and scarred from an old mold? I am afraid. I am afraid. When I look in the mirror, what do I see? What does everyone see? Who am I? Who am I? I am minted mint that is not mint. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe there is no answer. I'm afraid._

She closed the book.

The words escaped her lips softly, a whisper, like telling a secret.

"Stardust Miracle," she said. "A miracle wrought of primal matter."

At that, as soon as the sound was born into the desperate room, Grabiner slumped forward against the counter, letting his forehead come to rest against the cool glass. He was still trembling, but it seemed like these were aftershocks, the dying spasms of a spell that had passed, a curse that had been broken.

His arm snaked out and seized her around the waist, pulling her close to him, awkward, fierce, and uncomfortable. He managed to lurch to his feet and then he was holding onto her with tired, pale relief, holding her as if he meant to break her bones, holding her as if he feared she would dissolve into motes of light and dust. She relaxed into him, because all her muscles hurt, and her shoulder hurt, and her heart hurt. She felt as if she had been beaten to death and then raised through an unclean ritual.

Behind the counter, Madame Belle closed her eyes briefly, her mouth still drawn.

At last she spoke very slowly.

"It is not Eclipse Starlight," she said.

Still weak with relief, Amoretta turned her head to look at the grimoire binder. Grabiner was clearly completely unwilling to let her go, but he did loosen his arms enough to grant her this much freedom.

"What is Eclipse Starlight?" she asked in confusion.

It was Grabiner who answered her, speaking into the top of her head as he bent to wrap her more closely in his arms.

"It was _her_ grimoire. Eclipse Starlight: she that outpaces even the speed of light. It's been lost since - they never recovered it. I hadn't seen it - I haven't seen it in years, but I remember," she felt all his muscles tense and knew he had shut his eyes again, a desperate attempt to shut out the past, to shut out what he feared. " _Damn it all, I remember_."

Madame Belle spoke again, supplying the rest of the context that Amoretta had begun to piece together.

"Eclipse Starlight was the grimoire of the Peerless, the one who was born into this world in the year 1970 and named Violet Lore," she said evenly, her eyes still focused on Amoretta. "I bound it myself, years ago, when I was still a journeyman studying under Feron Quip at his shop on the Raven's Walk. It was a masterpiece. It was my first masterpiece." She paused and seemed to be considering whether or not she ought to continue. "When you were here before, little Indigo Witch, I did not comprehend the picture you were painting. It was out of focus. Then I had all the elements laid out before me, and still I could not see it. It was only as the grimoire began to be born that I began to suspect, and every moment it became more clear." Her eyes shifted to Grabiner, who was still bent over Amoretta, holding onto her like she was a bedraggled teddy bear. Her next words were drawn like the edge of a knife: crisp, brutal, poised. "Did you coach her, Hieronymous Grabiner?"

She meant to draw blood, and she did.

Amoretta felt Grabiner tense again, but then he let loose of her, rising to stand at his full height: angry, menacing, and wrathful. He still had one hand protectively curled around her back, although whether he meant to comfort and reassure her, or to reassure himself, Amoretta could not say.

"What kind of man do you think I am?" he said bitterly, full of spite and anger. It was not really a question. It was an accusation, a reflexive movement to defend himself, as if Marguerite Belle had called him something vile.

Madame Belle shook her head briefly. "I meant no insult, although I do realize the question itself was insulting because of its very nature. I had to ask this question. Others will see. Others will ask it. It is the obvious conclusion." She closed her eyes again. "Only I know what cannot be known by others. I bound Eclipse Starlight myself, alone. In my own grimoire are my notes, the notes that only I may read." She laid her finger down on the counter next to the book and tapped the glass once, briefly. "This grimoire is a twin. It is a near perfect twin. Until she named it, until I heard the young lady speak its name, this book was a ghost, a thing that ought not exist, a truth that violated the laws of the universe. I have seen Eclipse Starlight. I have held it in my own hands, and I know and understand grimoires intimately." She was grim as she said, "This young woman managed to minutely duplicate a grimoire that she cannot possibly have ever seen. Eclipse Starlight has passed out of earthly knowledge. Even _I_ could not have duplicated it so precisely, had I set out to do so. If I had not bound this grimoire myself, if I had not heard the young madame speak its hidden name myself, then I would swear that this grimoire was Eclipse Starlight."

"Then my grimoire," Amoretta began tentatively, "It looks like her grimoire? It looks like the grimoire that belonged to the Peerless?" Amoretta was not ready to call Violet by name, not in front of Grabiner. It seemed sacrilegious.

"It does not simply _look_ like Eclipse Starlight," Madame Belle denied. "Many grimoires bear a superficial resemblance to one another. They are, after all, all of the same kind: books that resonate with the soul. The grimoire of one human is very like the grimoire of another in many ways. But this is not a situation of resemblance. It is not a situation of parity. You have laid down your hand, Marianne Amoretta Grabiner, and you have left the fingerprints of Violet Valentine Lore."

"I don't understand," Amoretta said in confusion, her brows drawing together.

"In that you are not alone," said Madame Belle. "It is not something that I understand." She gestured briefly to Grabiner. "It is not something that he understands. Perhaps it is not a thing that is meant to be understood. There are things in this world that remain Great Mysteries."

"Couldn't it be a coincidence?" Amoretta asked, biting her lip. "Some kind of big, crazy coincidence? Even if there are dozens and dozens of combinations of elements that might make up a grimoire, it is possible that all this happened accidentally, isn't it? Isn't that possible?" Amoretta was trying desperately to lay hands on a logical explanation. She was trying to eliminate the impossible.

"Child," here Madame Belle's voice became gentle. "It is as if you painted a perfect replica of a Raphael, and you did it blindly, through me, by telling me each brushstroke in sequence. I will not deny that there are some irregularities in this grimoire, almost as if some unknown, foreign element had been introduced, but this just adds to the beauty of the pattern. This grimoire is more perfectly Eclipse Starlight than Eclipse Starlight _itself_ , as if Eclipse Starlight were merely the shadow thrown by _this_ book. You have created the mood, the feeling, the genius, and the very _essence_ of this masterwork, without ever having seen the original. You have done an impossible thing, Madame Grabiner. To call it a coincidence is to seek comfort in a non-answer."

It was Grabiner who broke into their conversation, slow and steady.

"She is capable of doing impossible things," he said, then hesitated before adding. "She makes the impossible commonplace. That is the meaning of Stardust Miracle. Wherever she goes, it _rains_ miracles."

Amoretta bit her lip again. "So what does all of this mean?" she asked, hoping for guidance.

"Little Princess of Sarandib, by opening that book, you have changed the nature of one universe, and perhaps more," Madame Belle said softly.

"It isn't Eclipse Starlight," Grabiner said, shaking his head. "We heard her speak its name."

"Yes," Madame Belle agreed. "That is so, just as this girl is named Marianne Amoretta." She paused. "And yet."

"And yet what?" Amoretta wondered, balling her hands into fists. She felt very nervous.

"How old are you, young woman?" asked the grimoire binder.

"Sixteen," Amoretta answered hesitantly. "I'll be seventeen in September."

"September," Madame Belle said thoughtfully. "The timing is right, if one factors in a bit of confusion, which is natural, given the circumstances of the original's death."

"The timing is _wrong_ ," Grabiner denied sharply. "I had already entertained that possibility," he said, and his arm on Amoretta's back drew her closer again, as if he had need of her intimate, physical presence. "But it cannot be. Even considering the month of her birth, she was born two years before Violet's death. She cannot be - "

"Reincarnation," Amoretta answered softly, her eyes wide and staring. She drew her hands to her mouth as the truth dawned on her slowly. "That's what you're talking about. _That's what you're talking about_."

"It does not play," Madame Belle agreed thoughtfully. "It is possible that she is younger than she claims."

"I have also entertained _that_ possibility," Grabiner said cooly. "And in that case, the month of her birth makes little difference, since it cannot be counted as the uncontestable truth. Even if it were divined, that evidence would not be uncontestable either."

"Young man, no matter your intentions, in this case, you cannot _prove_ _a_ _negative_. You lack the necessary information to support your emotional assertions - "

"You think I'm a reincarnation of _her_ ," Amoretta said, and she felt dizzy and confused. "You think I'm a reincarnation of that - of the person - of, of - "

"I," Grabiner broke in on her monologue and his distress and uncertainty were naked. "I, I don't know," he confessed. "Most of the time that idea seems utterly bizarre and impossible. It cannot be - that is, I don't think, I don't think it's possible. There is too much," he stammered, trying to make his meaning clear, "There is too much that is different."

"And yet," Madame Belle said again, "Here she stands in her indigo robes before a twinned grimoire with eyes the color of memory." She paused, then added, "She is very like. She is like the dead."

"But that grimoire was blank when she opened it," he objected. "Even if we couldn't read it, we could see that. And even if she is like, she is not _the same_." He delivered these last words with passionate sentiment.

"Then perhaps she is a pawn who has been queened," the lady said, then her eyes shifted thoughtfully to Amoretta. "When you first brought her here, I thought that you might have found a synonym. She had the life of Violet Lore about her: the energy, the humor, the spirit, that spark of the unknowable, of the _brilliant_ , so I thought 'in his loneliness, he has found another of her kind.' It is natural. The heart seeks what it needs and what it lacks, and you have been very lacking since the Peerless ceased to be," the grimoire binder said, shaking her head. "But that is not the fullness of it. She is not a synonym. This girl is the same word, written with different letters." She placed her hand flat against the counter as she said, "If I were in your position, I would suspect conspiracy."

"Conspiracy?" asked Amoretta, wrapping her arms around herself again. "Conspiracy," she repeated slowly.

"What is _is_ , and what is not, _is_ _not_ ," said Grabiner forcefully.

"Behind the velvet curtain, many things are possible, including those generally considered impossible, M. Hieronymous Grabiner. A miracle need not be a repeatable, testable phenomenon. A miracle need only happen once. That is the nature of a miracle," Madame Belle reminded him quietly. "If you cannot discover a satisfactory answer in the world that is already known, then you must seek it out in the unknown."

"Who am I?" Amoretta asked, swaying back and forth slightly on her feet.

"You are _yourself_ ," Grabiner insisted. "You are you and no one else. You are here, now. You are you and irreplaceable. I refuse to accept the idea of conspiracy. I refuse to accept the idea of kismet. If there has been a miracle, it is only this: that I found you in the countless sea of faces; that we grasped the opportunity _to_ _begin_. There is only one Amoretta, and that is you."

"But what if," Amoretta stammered, "What if - "

"What if _nothing_ ," he cut her off sharply. "You are you," he repeated.

"Then you will believe in the impossible coincidence?" asked Marguerite Belle.

"I will believe in the woman that I married," Grabiner declared fiercely.

Weakly, Amoretta asked, "Which one?"

He looked down at her then and if she feared he would be angry at her accusation, at her insult, she found he was not. He was warm and quiet and gentle.

"You are my wife, Amoretta," he said softly, and he raised his hand to lightly brush the top of her head. "You are my partner. That is something I will never question, no matter what shape the form of the truth takes. You are yourself, and I accept and love you."

"I," Amoretta began hesitantly, "I, I don't think I'm Violet," she said.

"I don't think you are either," he agreed, then pulled her into his arms again and held her gently while he stroked her hair. "I think you are Amoretta."

"I don't feel like someone else," she said, struggling again to communicate her meaning. "I feel like myself."

"Of course, darling," he murmured into her hair, and the word came out of his mouth naturally, because that was the word he wanted, and that was the word he _meant_. "Of course."

She closed her eyes and tried to let go of her fear, leaning into his embrace.

"That's right," she said quietly. "I am Amoretta."

* * *

 

They stayed in Belle, Book, and Candle for some time, because neither she nor Grabiner were in any fit state to immediately go among other people, perhaps most especially their friends. Madame Belle graciously allowed them to stay, disappearing somewhere into the recesses of the shop to afford them privacy. She had already flipped the sign in her window to closed when Grabiner went to the door of the shop and opened it briefly.

"We'll be a few minutes," he said to Rail Finch. "Take them for ice cream or something."

Then the group outside departed and Grabiner sat down tiredly in the old chair near the door.

"Come on," he said with an absent wave. "Come here."

Amoretta went to him shyly, because she was still uncertain and did not want to overstep her welcome.

_Am I allowed here?_ she said with her _self_ , with her small, tentative moments. _Do you want me here? Is that permissible?_

When she got close enough, he seized her around the waist and pulled her into the chair with him.

She tumbled into his lap, all arms and legs, and she accidentally backhanded him while squirming around, trying to get her balance. Fortunately, he did not take offense.

He wrapped his arms around her briefly and then let out a sigh. "Fuck all," he said, sounding drained. "That was exhausting."

Before giving himself space to breathe he had begun an incantation. Amoretta recognized it immediately. It was green magic. She felt his fingertips caressing her shoulder gently, rhythmically, ritually, and she was flooded with relief as the pain began to drain away.

"Thank you," she said softly. Even now, after all that had happened, she didn't want him to feel that she wasn't grateful for the fact that he remembered to care for her even when she didn't remember to care for herself. A moment passed, and then Amoretta asked in a small voice, "Did you know? Did you know it would happen like that? Before we came, I mean. When, when you first suggested I have a grimoire made. Did you suspect? Is that why you wanted me to have one?"

"Of course not," he grunted. "I doubt that someone authentically _clairvoyant_ could have predicted that little episode." He frowned. "I wanted you to have a grimoire because I believe that is the best course for your education. You're already coming along very well as a specialized Hermetic. I'm sorry the impression was difficult for you," he said. "It did not go at all like I expected it would. You must know, Amoretta, that if it is in my power to spare you pain and distress, then I will do it. I am sorry that my actions today hurt you. I have no excuse for the way that I acted. I should have maintained better control. I should have remained objective. It was - " he paused and seemed to struggle. "It was a shock."

She wanted to say, _You looked at me like I was a monster. I don't understand. I don't understand why you did that._

But she did not.

Instead, she said, "I was frightened."

_Do you hate me?_ she wanted to ask, but she did not.

"I'm sorry - " he began, but she cut him off.

"You don't have to apologize," she said, then pressed her teeth against her lower lip, building up her courage before asking, "Do you still want me to stay with you? To be with you? I don't think - " she took a deep breath. "That is, I'm beginning to understand that I'm not really the girl you thought I was. I know I'm," she hesitated, "I know I'm trouble. I'll understand if - " she couldn't continue because she didn't really understand anything. She was trying to be brave, but she did not really want to be brave. She was frightened.

She wanted to be cared for.

"I want you to stay with me always," was what he said calmly. "I want you to be with me always, in all the ways those words mean."

"Really?" she asked weakly, turning her face so she could hide her tears against his neck.

"Really," he said. "You can cry if you want. I'm here."

And she did.

At last they had both recovered enough courage and fortitude to be seen. Grabiner thanked Marguerite Belle for her hospitality and swore her to secrecy regarding the morning's conversation.

"Naturally," the bookbinder had said regally. "One who binds grimoires cannot afford to have a loose tongue. Besides," she said idly, "I have now experienced the impossible pleasure of having created the same masterpiece twice. For that alone I am beholden to the young madame."

Then she looked seriously at Amoretta again, saying, "You should ask him to take you to look at the stars, little Indigo Witch. It might create context where there is none."

She would say nothing more about it, and the comment made Grabiner pensive, so Amoretta felt that she could not ask.

They went back to their friends.

* * *

 

Shortly after they grouped up, Grabiner took charge of William and excused himself from their party. He still had errands to run, after all. Both the young ladies in attendance were somewhat embarrassed by the fact that he stooped to kiss his wife goodbye right there in the middle of the street.

It was a tender kiss, gentle and sweet, and it was clear he didn't care at all who saw them, or perhaps he banked on the fact that they would be seen and this was part of the reason he chose to do it there, as pedestrians passed on either side of them. His kiss was a promise and a reassurance.

_Everything is all right,_ he said, without saying it. _Everything remains. Have courage and faith._

He stood and straightened his hat where it had been skewed by their kiss, then he let his hand rest on the top of her head briefly after he stepped back from her. It was a fond, familiar touch.

"Please try to enjoy your day in the city," he said. "I'll see you this afternoon."

And then with a brief and dismissive wave at the other members of his party, Grabiner was off down the street and William was scrambling to follow at his heels.

With Grabiner departed, Amoretta found she could finally turn her attention back to the other girls. Ellen was a little rosy, perhaps embarrassed by the fact that Grabiner had been audacious enough to kiss his wife in the street, but Amoretta was happy to see she had a small smile on her face. Now that Ellen and Grabiner had become friends, Amoretta felt that her closest friend seemed to be cheered by the strength of her bond with her husband, rather than distressed by it. That was another calm reassurance: comforting, peaceful, _good_.

_We are all right,_ she thought to herself. _Everything is all right_.

Otherwise, Raven had a dreamy expression, the fingertips of one hand lightly held against her cheek. Her face was faintly flushed. When Amoretta made eye contact with her, Raven sighed delicately.

"He's so romantic!" Raven breathed, then she squealed quietly, wrapping her arms around herself and giving herself a squeeze as she wriggled in place.

Amoretta laughed, and that sound was a comfort too. "Well," she said idly. "I really can't complain." And then she stirred in a bit of mischief as she quirked up the corner of her smile crookedly and added, " _About_ _anything_ ," in a leading tone.

Raven squealed again to herself as her eyes widened. Her hands slipped up her cheeks and Amoretta was worried that she was about to authentically swoon, but then Raven was patting over herself rapidly. She produced a lacy handkerchief from one of her pockets and then bit it delicately as she turned away and let out a grand sigh.

"Good grief," said Ellen and Amoretta giggled.

"Well, it's true," Amoretta said with a wink that surely generated sparkles, a heart, and the foley sounds associated with both.

"The son of a bitch does have style, there's no discounting that," Rail Finch agreed with a laugh, then rolled up the newspaper he was carrying under his arm and gave Amoretta a mild swat on the bottom. "But his girl's as wild as a hare in March and as devious as a fox in December."

Amoretta laughed again and threw up a hand as if accepting high praise. "Thanks Doc! I like you too!"

Professor Finch guffawed at that and then shrugged, looking pleased to have been left with the three students in his care. "Well then ladies, what is it that you want to see today?" He swept his arm in front of himself and bowed his head. "I am at your service."

Ellen was the first to speak up, biting her lip as she did.

"I don't know about everybody else, but I'd really like to go to the library."

The library ended up being a popular suggestion, and so that was where they went first.

* * *

 

The Metropolitan Library of the Court of Figs was a beautiful building: elegant with the grace of marble, somber with the dignity of granite. Along with the Beaux Arts Courthouse School, it stood as one of the most recognizable architectural silhouettes in the Court of Figs. Its lines were Greek revival, and if it hadn't obviously been a library, Amoretta thought it might well be mistaken for a seat of government. Two great bronze sphinxes flanked the broad stone steps that led up to this bastion of learning, although fortunately, they did not riddle those who sought knowledge within their precinct, nor did they eat those with overdue library books.

Even climbing the steps toward the library was exhilarating, and did much to calm Amoretta's nerves. There were few things in the world she liked more than books.

The little party spent some time in the library, and the girls had the opportunity to trace their fingers over the spines of books new and old. Ellen methodically noted the titles of books she wanted to read, but Amoretta's heart was too full of everything to really settle. She flitted around like a little bird, looking at everything, and her hands were never still. The library was a novel experience for her. Naturally she had been in a number of libraries in her life, but apart from the paltry school library and Grabiner's (their?) own impressive personal collection, she had never been in a library that was curated and organized by witches.

The same was true for Ellen, but Raven seemed much more comfortable in the magical library, owing to her background as one of the witchborn. All three of the girls were consummate bibliophiles, so the large metropolitan library was a fascinating treasure trove.

Rail Finch remained on hand to answer all questions, as well as to make suggestions on what they ought to look at. There were beautiful animated maps of this world and the Other in the reference section, along with dozens of arcane reference books as well as the requisite mundane references. Amoretta was enthralled with a set of books labeled 'Encyclopaedia Arcana' and might have spent all day reading each volume cover to cover had Ellen not been impatient to investigate the rest of the library.

Like a mundane library, the collection was split neatly into fiction, nonfiction, and reference. Unlike a mundane library, the nonfiction area had shelves labeled 'alchemy' and 'transmutation' and 'conjuring.' Along with field guides for trees and other plants were books works on greenwitchery, and the many different mystical attributes of various types of wood and leaves and roots. The history section had books about the French Revolution and World War I, but also about things like the Goblin Wars and something called the Great Retreat. There were also more subtle works that explored the role of witches and wizards as they engaged with various heads of state at pivotal historical moments.

Amoretta thought that she might be willing to spend the rest of her life wandering among the tall shelves, because there was so much to see and learn. There was always something new to delight over, like a book about faerie etiquette, or a historical account of sky piracy in the gulfs of the Otherworld, or the little children gathered around an older witch who was presiding over story time. Amoretta wanted to drop to her bottom and listen raptly, because she loved stories of all kinds and particularly enjoyed being read to, but she realized that her friends might not be quite so interested in a story about a family of witch mice who lived underneath an old tire at the edge of a forest.

They all enjoyed themselves immensely, but at last their investigations were finished and they ended up back on the street - although not before Ellen and Amoretta had both applied for library cards.

Yet as enthralling as the library had been, the girls knew that the Court of Figs had much more to offer, and they were all three interested in learning through doing and having novel experiences. However, besides the library, no one had any strong or definite feelings about where they should go or what they should see. Ellen had never been to the court before, and Amoretta had only been once. Raven might have been loathe to admit it, but she was also inexperienced with the big city. Professor Finch therefore suggested that they simply stroll for a bit, and stop to look at whatever captured their fancy.

As they were walking and chatting together, Amoretta spied a familiar face.

"Oh!" Amoretta started, tugging on Ellen's arm. "Look. Isn't that Suki over there?"

Indeed, it certainly appeared to be. Suki Sato was sitting at a folding card table in front of a chocolate shop. There were stacks of papers in front of her, and as they watched, she moved from behind the table to press a sheaf of papers on a passing child.

"I wonder what she's doing?" Amoretta asked, turning to Raven. The question was bright with her enthusiasm and curiosity.

Raven shrugged. "I'm sure she's doing what she usually does, although I certainly can't say what motivates her," she said.

It seemed then, that the most succinct description of her activities was simply this: Suki was being Suki.

"Let's go talk to her!" Amoretta suggested, and since neither of the other girls objected, she led them directly to Suki's table.

Suki took interest in them as they approached, lacing her fingers together and leaning against them with her elbows planted on the table.

"Hello schoolmates, hello unmarried cranky professor," she said with a small smile. Then she paused and added carefully, "I have to say it that way, so you won't think I'm talking about Professor Grabiner. I have no strong opinions on your marital state otherwise."

"That's good to know," Ellen said with a sidelong look.

"I'm not cranky," Professor Finch objected immediately. "I'm _ornery_."

"Oh," Suki said, tilting her head to the side. "Sorry then. Hello ornery professor."

"Hello yourself, girl!" he answered with satisfaction.

Amoretta had meanwhile been engrossed in studying the piles of papers that covered the top of the card table. They seemed to be handmade books: card stock covers and xeroxed leaves all stapled together along one side. There was only one title among the books on the table and it was _We Are All Friends_. Based on the illustration on the cover, which appeared to be a charming crayon and watercolor drawing of a girl surrounded by various mythic beasts, Amoretta felt she could predict the interior contents of the books piled up in front of Suki. She was immediately interested.

"So what are you up to today, Suki?" Amoretta asked.

"I am selling my books," Suki said seriously. "Would you like a copy of your own?"

Amoretta brightened. "Sure!" she said enthusiastically, digging in her bag for her wallet.

Suki shook her head.

"That's not necessary," she said, pressing a book on Amoretta. "You may have one for free because you are my friend."

Amoretta flushed as she took the book. "Really?" she said with excitement. "I mean, I'm really touched, but I can pay - "

"It's fine," Suki insisted, nodding slowly. Then she turned her attention to Raven and Ellen. "Would you also like copies?"

Ellen was caught flat footed and Raven began to stammer, but Amoretta only smiled brightly.

"Of course they would," she said cheerfully. "I can buy their copies, if you'll let me."

Suki shook her head again and pressed two additional copies of her book on Amoretta. She apparently considered Ellen and Raven to be her friends as well. Amoretta thought about Raven, and what Raven had told her about how Suki got along with the other girls in her hall. Then she thought of Suki's book. Perhaps even if the other girls were not friends with her, she was still friends _with_ _them_. It was touching, and Amoretta was filled with an overwhelming desire to really and truly become Suki's friend, not just be called so because of the other girl's openness and generosity.

While Amoretta had been thinking these passionate, affectionate thoughts, Suki had remained respectfully silent, as if waiting for Amoretta to finish what she was doing.

When Amoretta beamed at her, her thoughts having been thought, Suki carefully laid one single finger against her cheek before adding a third additional copy to the stack, bringing the total to four.

"Please give this copy to Professor Grabiner," she said seriously. "I would like him to try and absorb the message."

Amoretta couldn't help but giggle. "I'll make sure that he gets it," she said. "But you can't just give all your books away," she protested. "Let me pay for _some_ of them."

"Your happiness is thanks enough," Suki insisted. "Besides, I didn't make this book so I could get rich. I made it because making it made me happy."

Rail Finch plunked down his wallet on the table.

"How much?" he asked.

"It's a pay-what-you-can model," Suki insisted, lovingly patting one of her picture books. "That way anyone can enjoy them, regardless of their means."

Professor Finch dug in his wallet and produced a twenty. When Suki saw it, her eyes sparkled to such a degree that one might have thought legendary treasures were on offer. She appeared to be deeply and authentically moved.

"For that much, you can have all of them," she said as she took the money and put it into her own little bag.

"What do you mean, all of them?" Professor Finch demanded in consternation. "I don't need _all_ of them."

"Nonetheless, they're now your property," Suki said with finality. It was now law, apparently.

"How much have you made today?" Amoretta wondered as she watched Professor Finch grumble as he shoved copies of Suki's book into his shoulder bag.

"Twenty dollars," Suki said, standing up to stretch her arms and legs. She tilted her head to the side. "Why are you in the city?" she wondered. "Aren't you supposed to be at your little house, experiencing matrimonial bliss?"

Amoretta giggled. "I am experiencing matrimonial bliss. Professor Grabiner is here in the court with us, running errands. We had some things to pick up, and so Professor Finch offered to chaperone us while we're here. We're thinking of doing some window shopping."

"I love windows," Suki volunteered. "I already saw Professor Grabiner. He was not interested in buying one of my books."

"Well then, I'm sure that it's going to be a wonderful surprise when he finds out that he's getting one anyway," Amoretta said with a smile.

By this point, Professor Finch had stuffed his bag full to bursting with Suki's picture books. There were still several dozen left on the table.

"Do you want me to ship them to you?" Suki wondered and Finch shook his head.

"It's cost a damn sight more than twenty dollars to ship all of those," he said.

Suki pondered for a moment, then pulled out a clean sheet of paper from her bag and began writing on it in large capital letters. In the end, she had a sign that said "FREE TO GOOD HOME" that she placed on top of the remaining books. She paused for a moment and thought about it, then added in smaller letters "NOT THE TABLE."

"There," she said, and Professor Finch seemed satisfied with this turn of events.

"Is that all right?" Ellen asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It's fine," said Suki placidly. "After all, I can always make more books. I have more ideas than I have paper to draw them on." She turned to point at the door behind her. "This is my uncle's chocolate shop," she explained. "Before you shop for windows, would you like to shop for chocolate?"

The shop behind Suki had large glass windows that displayed jars of jewel-like hard candies, plates of tempting bonbons, and small jellied sweets that wriggled as if they were alive. The embellished script painted on the glass proclaimed the premises to be "Avogadro Milton's Famous New York Chocolates" and featured smaller text that claimed "since 1785."

"Sure!" Amoretta said with a nod. "I mean, chocolate is great. Plus, I know somebody who's pretty partial to the stuff."

They all trooped in after Suki, and a chorus of bells sounded out as they crossed the threshold into the candy wonderland. For someone keen on chocolate, the place was surely a sublime paradise. Wooden shelves were lined with glass canisters of hard candies, rolled taffies, preserved fruits, and fondant balls, and the long glass cases seemed to feature hundreds of different types of chocolates. There were twelve different kinds of candy apples on a rack near the cash register and a similar number of wriggling jelly slimes arranged in a tableau on a platter nearby.

It smelled _amazing_.

"Welcome, welcome kids," came a saucy voice. "All major religions agree that chocolate is good for the soul. If you buy our chocolate you're guaranteed to become a better person. You may even avoid eternal punishment and damnation. That's a pretty sweet deal, if I do say so myself. It's your choice: chocolate now, or lake of fire later. Think about it." There was a teenaged girl with bubblegum pink hair leaning against one of the counters. She was dressed in a wild combination of pastel and neon colors and seemed to have twenty five or thirty barrettes in her hair. There was a striped brown beret askew on her head.

"Hello Mr. Finch. It's good ta see you again."

Behind the counter stood a slender man with the most luxuriant drooping mustache that Amoretta had seen in her entire life. The ends of this magnificent moustache tapered out to silky pink wisps that hung like catfish whiskers, nearly brushing his collar. This gentleman was also wearing a striped beret, much like the well-accessorized girl. It was he who had addressed their professor.

"Hey-o Junior," answered Finch with a wave, "I hope the chocolate business is still keeping you warm!"

"Warm as fudge steamin' on marble, Mr. Finch! It don't get much warmer than that!"

Suki went directly up to the register, got out her newly acquired twenty dollar bill, and slid it across the counter.

"Chocolate," she requested simply.

"All right, Suki," the chocolatier said with a chuckle.

Turning back to the individuals gathered behind her, Suki said, "This is my Uncle Avogadro. He is Avogadro Milton V. He is not my real uncle," she explained frankly, "But he is a close, personal associate. He makes very good chocolate." She pointed at the girl who was still leaning casually against the counter. "This is Avogadro Milton VI. She also makes good chocolate."

"How have your book sales been going?" the younger Milton wanted to know. She was chewing gum, and her teeth were white like she regularly starred in dental advertisements.

"I sold everything," Suki announced nonchalantly. "Thank you for letting me borrow the table."

"I'm glad," said the mustachioed Milton senior.

"Is it fine to leave the table as it is?" Suki asked, watching him carefully plate up beautifully decorated bonbons.

"Sure," the chocolatier agreed, "I'll have Vovo clean it up when we close up shop," he assured, then cocked his head to the side. "You got plans?" he wondered.

At first, Suki was silent as she accepted the plate of chocolates, but then she spoke in a small voice.

"Maybe."

Suki brought the chocolates back over to the group and waved them to follow her to a small cafe table.

"Please have some chocolate," she said seriously.

"We can't eat your chocolate!" Ellen protested, flushed. "You just spent all the money you earned on those chocolates! It would be wrong for us to eat them! You worked hard to earn that money. You should eat them!"

"I don't like money very much," Suki admitted evenly. "But I do like chocolate, so every time I get some money, I trade it for chocolate," she explained.

"All the more reason!" Ellen insisted. "Please don't mind us and enjoy your chocolate!"

"I wanted to share this chocolate with friends," Suki said hesitantly. "I don't think that's wrong." She tilted her head thoughtfully to the side. "Is it?" she asked. "Am I doing it wrong?"

The moment the magic word had slipped out of Suki's mouth Amoretta had plunked herself down in one of the cafe chairs so hard that it made a small crash. She flushed, slightly embarrassed by her lack of grace, but then took Suki's hand and gave it a squeeze.

"You're doing great," Amoretta insisted. "And I'd love to have some of your chocolate. Which one should I start with?" she asked.

"Well," Suki said slowly, "They're all good. What do you like?"

While Amoretta and Suki discussed chocolate, Rail Finch sat down at the table with them and plucked a bonbon from the plate.

Raven looked over her shoulder curiously at Ellen and then went to sit delicately in one of the open chairs to listen to Suki's description of the chocolate.

At this point, Ellen clearly felt a little silly, so she drew out the last chair and sat down with them.

They sampled the chocolate and talked about how their summers had progressed. Suki was very interested in the description of the slumber party in particular.

"The next time I do something like that, I promise you'll be invited," Amoretta said emphatically and Suki smiled. It was a small, secret smile. Amoretta felt warmed seeing it.

"I'd like that," Suki said.

While they were chatting, Avogadro Milton VI dropped by their table with a selection of toffees.

"On the house," she insisted with a wink. "It's not too often that we get so many cute girls in here at once."

"That's a lie," Suki said immediately. "During the school year this place is always packed with students from the Courthouse School."

"Snobs and brats are _not_ cute," the younger Milton declared then went back behind the counter.

"Vovo goes to Courthouse School," she said in a stage whisper, as if revealing one of the secrets of the universe.

Amoretta giggled, then said, "We're planning on spending the rest of the day window shopping. Would you like to come with us, Suki?" She turned her head so she could see the girl behind the counter. "You're invited too, if you want, Vovo!"

Vovo winked again and said, "The offer's really tempting, but I'm working today. If I leave this place, everything grinds to a standstill. Taffy doesn't pull itself, you know!"

"Chocolate doesn't eat itself either," the elder Milton quipped, swatting at his daughter as she popped a whole wiggly slime jelly in her mouth at once.

Suki seemed pleased by the invitation because her cheeks went pink although her face was otherwise calm and still.

"I would very much like to shop for windows," she said, and it was settled.

Once they finished the plate of chocolates, Amoretta went back to the counter and began selecting chocolates for a box she meant to give to Grabiner.

"I need bittersweet chocolates, mostly. Ones with more complex flavor, I guess? And I think he likes the ones with peppers too. Oh, and tea and coffee flavored chocolates. He likes those."

The proprietor of the establishment looked at her closely and then had a revelation. "You're the little Madam Grabiner," he said, then laughed. "I know just what you need, then."

Amoretta's cheeks went pink and she ducked her head briefly. "That's me!" she said. "My name's Amoretta!"

"Lady Halifax!" Vovo piped up, then leaned far over the counter to stare hard at Amoretta. At last she said, "You sure don't look pregnant. I get the feeling that if you tried to have a baby you'd look like Humpty Dumpty, sort of a big egg with little stick arms and legs sticking out."

Amoretta's mind went blank.

"What'd'I tell you?" demanded Avogadro Sr., giving his outspoken daughter a whap on her head with an unfolded chocolate box. "Don't be rude to customers! You gotta learn tact! Tact!" he insisted, waving his arms wildly, "We've got a reputation to uphold. You and your big mouth! When a lady is gonna have a baby you tell her how beautiful she looks, not that she looks like some kinda deformed nursery rhyme character."

"What can I say?" asked Vovo with a grin. "I calls 'em like I sees 'em, old man! And I didn't say she looked like she was from a deformed nursery rhyme! I said the exact opposite. She is like, the least pregnant lady I have ever seen. If she's gonna have a baby then I bet it's gonna be delivered in the mail."

The chocolatier scowled at his cackling daughter and turned his attention back to Amoretta.

"Please excuse my very stupid daughter," he asked. "Sugar has unfortunately rotted her brain. Also I am sure that I dropped her on her head when she was a child. Probably multiple times. Nothing else explains the _rotten_ way she behaves."

As if she had been released from a spell of total mind-numbing embarrassment, Amoretta at last became aware of the absolute absurdity of the situation and burst out laughing. The chocolatier was both confused and relieved as Amoretta laughed until she was breathless, leaning against the counter. She had to wipe tears from her eyes as she paid for the box of chocolates and put it away in her bag.

"See? Mrs. Grabiner loves me," insisted Vovo. "She understands that laughter is like chocolate. It's _also_ good for the soul."

The elder Milton rolled his eyes, but seemed content to let things remain as they were, since disaster had been averted. Thereafter, Avogadro Sr. concerned himself with wishing Suki a good time out and promising her there would be a cold supper for her in the icebox if she was not home in time for dinner.

She nodded seriously at all his instructions, confirmed she had her key, and then seemed to be deeply and sweetly pleased to leave the chocolate shop to go shopping with her friends.

* * *

 

After leaving the chocolate shop, the first place that drew the interest of the girls was a book store.

The store was narrow, but deep, with high shelves piled with books, and boxes filled with books at every corner. Books filled every nook and cranny. It made Amoretta feel very much at home. Even at Revane, every room had stacks of books, even with one of the guest bedrooms turned into a dedicated library.

There were four stories of books piled on top of one another and connected by iron staircases. The shelves on each floor were packed so tightly together that one had to sidle to get between them.

Quite understandably, the party scattered, each to investigate the books that most piqued their personal fancy. They were soon upstairs, downstairs, and in the lady's chamber.

Suki immediately wandered off, and when Amoretta looked for her she found her in serious conversation with a bored-looking witch who was shelving books. Creeping closer, Amoretta managed to hear a little of their conversation.

"Miss Sato, I have told you before. I have no interest in either stocking or selling your books. Frankly, I doubt I could even _give_ _them_ _away_ \- "

Then came Suki's mellow, even voice. "My book has a very important message - "

"I know. I know because you've told me so at least a hundred times."

"I don't think I've told you a hundred times yet," she said seriously. "Maybe thirty seven, but not a hundred. Anyway, I am repeating this information because it is important information."

Amoretta winced and then moved to rejoin Ellen. Perhaps it was better to let Suki wage this battle on her own.

Ellen was looking at reference books on minerals and precious stones. Amoretta was immediately interested.

"Are you thinking about stones in terms of catalysts or artificing?" she asked, leaning forward to look at the books Ellen was considering.

"Catalysts at the moment," Ellen answered seriously, "Although I think it would be lovely to learn how to artifice stones someday. It's one of the things you think of when you think of 'magic' isn't it? A big heap of beautiful gemstones, all cut and polished and shedding their light softly."

Amoretta nodded. "I know what you mean," she said. "Glowing gemstones, they seem like an accessory every witch is required to have," she laughed. "At the top of a wand or staff, or as a huge pendant or ring. And you know? Ordinary gemstones don't come that big." She paused, "Unless you're a sultan or a rajah or something, I guess."

Ellen shook her head and said, "It's a good thing that the velvet curtain keeps ordinary people from paying attention to magical objects. Otherwise I'm sure someone would take notice of the fact that ordinary school girls walk around wearing ridiculously large rubies and emeralds, sometimes just to ornament _their_ _belts_."

"Witch fashions can be a bit ostentatious," Amoretta said with a giggle.

Ellen peered around the side of a bookshelf at witch who was wearing a tall, pointed hat that appeared to have a live feathered lizard as its ornament. It squeaked from time to time.

"That's the understatement of the year," she said dryly.

Amoretta peered around the bookcase with her and then gave an amiable shrug.

"I dunno," she said. "That could be her pet or her familiar or something, not just a fashion statement."

"It ought to say something," Ellen said deliberately, "That we can't tell just by looking."

"That is a point well taken," Amoretta agreed, giggling into her hands.

They browsed through books for some time, looking at histories and botanical guides, craft books and novels, until Amoretta came to a stop, one finger pressed lightly against her cheek.

"You know what I'd really like?" she asked, twirling around on one foot. "I'd like to buy something nice for Manuel. He's always so good to all the other summer students, and he sent over just piles and piles of sweets when we had the party."

"He is very thoughtful," Ellen agreed, hugging her books to her chest. "He thinks about everyone, but he's always trying to make it seem as if he just does nice things accidentally."

"I know!" Amoretta said with sudden inspiration. "I'll buy him a cookbook as a present! I think he'd like that, don't you?"

"I certainly would," Ellen said with a smile. "I think books are some of the best presents that a person can get."

"Great!" Amoretta said, grabbing Ellen's arm and tugging her along. "Let's go pick one out!"

It took some time for Amoretta to choose the perfect cookbook for Manuel. There were many to look through, and all of them were beautifully bound and illustrated. It was exciting to page through them, looking at the recipes and imaging the way that they tasted. It was very interesting too. Amoretta was always excited to find small bits of witchlore in little boxes on the sidebars.

In the end she decided on a book of fancy Russian pies. They all looked so delicious that Amoretta was sorely tempted to buy a copy for herself, despite the fact that she had made very few pies in her lifetime and none of them as elaborate as the most basic pie in this cookbook filled cover-to-cover with impressive pies.

Their selections having been made, Amoretta and Ellen went to the counter to make their purchases. Ellen went first, laying her two books on the counter. The clerk glanced down and slid the two books apart so he could get a clear look at them, then scrutinized Ellen.

"May I see your license?" he asked flatly. It was obviously a question he asked regularly.

Ellen flushed. "I don't have a driver's license yet," she confessed, glancing down at the two books on the counter and wondering which of them was an R-18 product. She bit her lip. "I'm only seventeen," she answered honestly.

The clerk frowned and shook his head. "No, I mean your magic license." He tapped one of the books in front of him with a forefinger. "You need a Class II license to buy a book like this."

Ellen flushed more deeply. "Are you sure?" Ellen asked, clearly embarrassed. "I know that you have to be licensed to buy books on magic theory, but this is just a guide to reagents. I bought the first volume at a regular used bookstore. I mean, not a magic shop. I bought it at an ordinary bookstore."

"Well, it shouldn't have been there," the clerk said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "It slipped through the system. I'm sorry, but I can't sell you this book if you don't have a license."

Ellen looked so embarrassed and ashamed that she was on the edge of messy tears so Amoretta stepped forward and put her own book on Ellen's stack.

"I have a Class II license," she said with forced cheerfulness. "I'll just buy it. That's all right, isn't it?"

The clerk looked at her blankly and it was clear that he did not think Amoretta was old enough to get into a PG-13 movie without adult supervision.

"May I see your license?" he asked dubiously.

Amoretta nodded, still all forced smiles. Ellen was holding onto one of her arms very tightly, as if she wished to disappear from the world completely. Amoretta fished in her little bag and pulled out her ID card.

_I'm glad Hieronymous thought to have this made for me,_ she reflected as she handed it over for inspection.

The clerk looked it over carefully, held it up to the light, then nodded. "That's fine," he said. "I can complete your purchase so long as your husband or wife is with you."

Amoretta blanched.

"What?" she asked in confusion.

The clerk behind the counter looked tired, but he opened his mouth to explain. Before he could speak he was interrupted by smooth, cultured, faintly _imperious_ voice that came from directly behind Amoretta.

"It's because you're Class IIM," the girl said idly. "You're not really Class II yet, so you can't make restricted purchases without your partner present," she explained. "Please do forgive them as they're obviously wildseeds," she said to the clerk, as if the two girls had done him a great wrong by trying to buy books.

Amoretta turned to look at girl who was begging pardon on her behalf and saw that she wasn't any older than they were. She was perhaps even younger. She was exquisitely dressed, and her hair was done up in two high pigtails ornamented with ribbons and bells. There were three other girls behind her, once so substantial and tall that Amoretta was certain that she was a spriggan, or some other similarly large giantess. The well-dressed princess appeared to be their leader, because they nodded and agreed when she spoke, as if they were well trained poodles.

"It's understandable that you wouldn't be familiar with our customs," the pigtailed girl continued on, indulgent, "But the rules are in place as a supplement to the velvet curtain. If wildseeds could buy whatever magic books they liked whenever they liked, it is very possible that more authentic magic books would slip out into the mundane world unnoticed, like the one your friend bought accidentally," she explained. "Once you finish your compulsory schooling you can be licensed and buy whatever books you like. Until then, please be patient."

Here the girl graced them with a cool smile.

Amoretta felt Ellen's fingers on her arm tighten and then the other girl was rapidly shaking her head.

"It's fine," she said. "I'm sorry. Please excuse me. I won't be making any purchases today. I'm sorry for having wasted your time."

Amoretta frowned at the courteous princess, whose kindness felt as if it had come on the end of a knife. Then she turned back to the clerk.

"May I buy these two, at least?" she asked, indicating the novel Ellen had chosen for herself along with the cookbook.

That, at least, ought to be legal.

The clerk gave her a pained smile and again shook his head, tapping the cookbook.

"That's a restricted item too," he said patiently. "You need a Class II license."

"You've got to be kidding!" the sound exploded out of Amoretta so unexpectedly that it surprised even her. "A cookbook is restricted material? It teaches you how to make pies, not how to throw fireballs!"

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but it is restricted," the clerk said patiently.

Behind her, Amoretta could almost _hear_ the smirk that the princess and her entourage had exchanged the moment she had raised her voice. It filled the air at her back with a smoke-like miasma of superiority.

"It is a _magical_ cookbook, my dear," she said, sounding insufferably smug. "Of course it's restricted. And please do mind your manners. I can't imagine the circumstances of your upbringing, but this poor gentleman is simply doing his job. The law is the law. It's for _everyone's_ safety."

In the midst of this confrontation Professor Finch arrived from the opposite side of the store, Raven and Suki trailing behind him. He took one look at the clerk, at Ellen clinging shamefaced to Amoretta's arm, and Amoretta looking mildly incensed, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"What seems to be the trouble?" he asked, fixing a baleful eye on the clerk. He did not seem keen on the man who had caused two of his charges such distress.

"Sir, I was just explaining to these two young women that they cannot purchase restricted books without a Class II license," he explained, looking a bit nervous.

Finch rolled his eyes, dug into his coat pocket and pulled out his wallet. He passed over his own license.

"Is that good enough for you?" he demanded.

"Yes, sir," the clerk said immediately. "Of course, sir.  If you're willing to take responsibility for this transaction, then everything is fine."

"You're damn right I'm taking responsibility for it," Rail Finch snapped.

"Yes, sir," the clerk said, clearly feeling faint. "I'm certainly sorry to have troubled you, sir.  We're always proud to serve the needs of a black cloak.  If there is anything else I can do to make up for the inconvenience I caused you -- "

"You can hurry up with the damn transaction," Finch said sharply, snapping his fingers. "I don't need you to kiss my ass.  I need you to have some sense and courtesy when dealing with students.  If you'd just explained the situation to them clearly they could have called me up here and we'd have avoided all of this."

"Yes sir," the clerk agreed, very flustered.  "I am very sorry sir -- "

Amoretta glanced over her shoulder to see how the princess had taken their professor's arrival.  She and her entourage had taken a few steps back and were observing the party with a look of mild distaste, quite possibly because of all of Professor Finch's swearing.

Fortunately, the rest of the transaction finished smoothly and quickly, and soon all three books were secured in a bag and Finch was herding the girls out of the shop.

He gave Ellen a rough pat on the head.

"Don't you worry girl," he said companionably. "I've been in that spot myself. Come Christmas break, I'll take you for your licensing test. You'll be more than ready for a Class II by then, and then you can buy all the damn books you want."

Ellen nodded dumbly, but kept her head down. Amoretta walked next to her and chatted brightly about anything and everything until at last Ellen recovered enough to smile.

* * *

 

After their harrowing episode at the bookstore, Amoretta made another startling discovery.

They were being followed.

As far as Amoretta could tell, Professor Finch had given no sign at all that he had noticed the girl who was tailing them. He was in the middle of an animated story about an all night diner that had been somewhere in the Court of Figs fifty years before.

But then he casually led them around the corner into a narrow alley, and as soon as they were clear from street visibility, he glanced toward the girls who were clustered around him like ducklings.

"I need you gals to step back," Professor Finch said quietly. His expression was calm and even, but hard. He was all business. Although he still carried his staff strapped to his back, he pulled a wand from the inner confines of his jacket and held it palmed in his hand as if it were a switchblade.

He waved the girls back behind him, and they retreated down the alley, giving him his space. He sidled up against the wall, then crept along until he was a foot and a half back from the corner. When the unsuspecting girl came around the corner at a dog trot, he leaped from his position and collared her, pressing his wand against her neck.

"Hold up, don't shoot, I'm a member of the free press," cried the apprehended girl, who had reflexively raised both hands in the air.

"I thought so," growled Rail Finch, and he made no move to draw his wand away from her collar bone. "Start talking," he advised.

"Well, the name's Glenjamin, Glenjamin Sparkle," she volunteered. "I've got a card if you want to see it." Rail Finch did not indicate that she was free to pat down her person, so she continued on with her introduction. "Sparkle's the word, if you haven't heard. I'm with the Marvel. You know the Marvel? 'The Marvel won't quit on news that's fit to print.' That's one of mine, you know," she added conversationally. "I am eminently quotable. It's one of my charm points."

"You wanna explain why you were following us, buttercup?" asked Professor Finch darkly, "Or do you want me to turn you over to the Vigilance for harassment?"

"Hold up, hold up, hold up," Glenjamin Sparkle interrupted, "You've got it all wrong. I'm not _harassing_ you. Calm down, Dirty Harry. You can put your wand away. You see, all of us?" She made a vague but apparently all encompassing motion with one of her hands, which was apparently the widest range of motion Rail Finch would allow. "We're just sort of destined to become acquainted," she laughed, although it was clear she was getting a little nervous, since Finch still had a wand drawn on her. "In other words, I just happened to be coming around the corner when I bumped into you - "

"You happened to be _following_ _us_ so I set a snare for you," Finch corrected with narrowed eyes.

"Well, I can't say that that's altogether inaccurate either, sir - can I call you sir? You look like a 'sir' - anyway you are, well, let's say, generally correct. I was _technically_ following you, but it's not suspicious, I swear on my mother's grave. The fact that you caught me out so easily makes me feel like I'm losing my touch - but then I didn't expect to have to be on high alert tailing a bunch of school kids. Look, I'm serious Clint Eastwood, you can put the wand away. It's not like I'm a mugger," she insisted with open arms. "I have both a professional and a scholastic interest in your friends here, one of 'em in particular."

Rail Finch let out a growl, and Amoretta thought that Glenjamin Sparkle had no difficulty discerning his reaction to this new bit of information.

"Have I mentioned that I am a graduate of Iris Academy and an _acquaintance_ of Professor Hieronymous Grabiner?" she scrambled, slightly more panicked. "Hence my _scholastic_ interest in the kid."

"Wait, really?" Amoretta asked, leaning forward. She was suddenly much more interested in the captive.

"What year? demanded Finch, keeping Glenjamin Sparkle firmly collared.

"Nineteen ninety two!" Sparkle insisted, and seemed to be considering squirming out of her button down shirt to be free of Finch.

All at once he released her and studied her hard.

"What colors did you graduate in? he demanded.

"White and Blue," she said, trying to straighten out her clothes.

"Draw a rune," Finch demanded. He still had his wand on her.

Sparkle groaned and said, "Really?"

Finch only glared at her, so Sparkle again scrambled to draw a rune. Finch watched her critically and then at last relaxed slightly.

"Well, you're a Pentachromatic sure enough, and if you graduated in ninety two then it makes sense why I don't know you. I didn't start teaching at the Academy until ninety five," he said. "But you sure as hell ain't any friend of Hieronymous or I'm a pie-eyed grebe."

"I didn't say I was a friend," Sparkle corrected, having finally finished readjusting her suspenders and dusting off her hat. "I said I was an _acquaintance_. He'll know me as soon as he sees me. I was one of his students, so you see I've got a personal interest in this story."

Finch raised an eyebrow and said dryly, "Yeah, I'm beginning to get the picture of your angle." He frowned. "Listen, nobody here is interested in talking to the press."

"Well, that's a shame," Glenjamin Sparkle said brightly, not sounding particularly discouraged, "But you know, Doc Holiday, I'm the kind of a girl who's always waiting for a surprise turnaround. My glass is always half full because I'm always fillin' it up! I mean, look on the bright side of life, am I right?"

Amoretta stepped forward thoughtfully.

"Were you really one of Hieronymous's students?" she asked, and Glenjamin Sparkle's eyes shimmered soulfully, as if she had just laid eyes upon the bonafide Madonna.

"Careful little missy," Finch warned, but Amoretta held up a hand to forestall him.

"I know what I'm doing," she insisted and he grimaced, but fell silent.

Glenjamin Sparkle snapped out of the shimmering all at once and grinned. "Sure was," she said. "For four whole years - I'm a glutton for punishment, I know. Comes from being raised Catholic, I think. Anyway, I'd know his gloomy puss anywhere. He's always got that Thomas Hardy moody-broody angst going on, like he's going to ride out over the moors with his shirt unbuttoned and then die of tuberculosis or something. I'd say it was kind of cute if it weren't so, you know, _unfortunate_."

Amoretta thought about it, and then said, "I think I'd like to talk to you."

"He ain't gonna like this one bit," warned Finch and Amoretta turned to smile at him briefly.

"I know. Don't worry. I'll take full responsibility. I'll tell him I overpowered you," she said, cutely sticking out her tongue, then she turned her attention back to Glenjamin Sparkle.

"So you know, I'm not interested in talking to you on the record," Amoretta said shrewdly. "At least not yet. But you seem really interesting, so I'd like to get to know you."

The lady reporter beamed and immediately offered her hand.

"Glenjamin's the name: like 'Benjamin' but more glorious and glowy. The name runs in the family, and as names go, it's not a bad one to be shackled with. It's got pizazz!" she said with a momentary flourish of jazz hands. "But really, call me Glen," she said, snapping one of her suspenders once. "Everybody does."

Amoretta offered her own hand. "My name's - "

"Marianne Amoretta Grabiner née Suzerain. You're sixteen and you come from a little town in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. You're the daughter of Noir Suzerain, the celebrity gambler, and an unknown secondary party. You're also notoriously hard to get a photo of," Glen Sparkle supplied and gave her hand a firm shake.

"You're sure informed," Amoretta said with a smile.

"I'm _the_ _press_ ," Glen Sparkle said with a flourish. "Call me the fourth estate. I know _all_ the things it's my business to know and _most_ of the things it's not my business to know."

"I'm not sure whether that's comforting or upsetting," Amoretta said honestly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"No knowledge is bad knowledge!" Glen Sparkle said, grinning. It was apparently her credo.

"Well, let me tell you how this is gonna play out," Amoretta said thoughtfully. "I'll talk to you for a bit, and see how I like you. Meanwhile, if you print a single word about me or my husband in your paper that I don't directly sign off on, I will _never_ speak to you again. And I will not lift a finger to stop my very cross husband from visiting his displeasure on you. You may not have heard, _but_ _he_ _really_ _doesn't_ _like_ _the_ _press_." She paused and tilted her head to the other side. "But, if I like you, I'll talk to you. I'll talk to you and only you. You get me?"

"Pretty well, I think," Glen said with serious nod. She seemed to be thinking thing over. At last she nodded again, saying. "Sounds square to me."

And that was all there was to it.

* * *

 

Having come to a solemn and binding agreement with the object of her journalistic desires, Glen Sparkle seemed perfectly content to follow them around as they continued to tour the city, her hands in her pockets, whistling jauntily.

Rail Finch wasn't particularly keen on the fact that she had elected to keep company with them, Amoretta could tell with one sidelong glance, but he was apparently willing to tolerate her because he had judged her threat level as low. He was letting Amoretta have her way on this not because he thought she was acting in her own best interests, and that having a friend in the press might actually be a good idea, but because it was ultimately her business, hers and her husband's at any rate. It was up to Grabiner to manage her when she got wily and weird-tempered, not him. Amoretta felt this implicitly, without having to ask for his opinion.

She stopped absently in front of a shop window and stared at her own reflection as she thought about things. After a moment, someone delicately cleared their throat behind her - Ellen or Raven, she wasn't sure which - and she started. Then she flushed a bit as she realized what sort of shop she had been standing on the threshold of.

Amoretta lingered before the elegant looking window display for only a moment longer, then she wheeled on her heel and thrust her small index finger right under the reporter's nose.

" _Not a word,"_ she reminded fiercely.

Glen Sparkle's smile quirked up mischievously at the corner and she held up two fingers. "I'm pretty clear about where the bread's buttered, Lady Halifax. Music is the food of love and all. _Lead_ _on_."

"Uhhh," Amoretta said. "I think you mean ' _play_ _on_.'"

"Whatever," Glen Sparkle said with an idle wave. "Like the Go-Go's, my lips are sealed."

_That's a good line,_ Amoretta thought to herself. _I ought to remember it._

Satisfied, Amoretta led them on.

Right into a shop that sold dainties and unmentionables.

Glen Sparkle seemed totally in her element, as if she were a regular at this establishment. She settled down in a boudoir chair as if it were a throne and crossed one leg over the other, content to observe what played out as it played out.

Raven drifted off toward a display of sultry bed jackets and Suki was immediately interested in a outfit that seemed to consist mostly of marabou feathers and pink fur. Ellen hung back near Rail Finch, her cheeks faintly pink.

Amoretta was immediately entranced by a set of lingerie that appeared to have live flowers growing all over it. It was pale pink and gossamer thin, with cherry blossoms as the centerpiece of the design and whispery spring green leaves as binding elements. Amoretta had always liked sweet floral motifs on underthings, but she had never entertained the idea that being a witch might give her the opportunity to wear underthings that looked like they had been tailor made for a dryad - and not a figurative girl-of-the-forests dryad either, but an authentic, pursued-by-Apollo, actually-a-tree type dryad. When she touched the petals they felt cool and silky and full of life. The pretty set seemed so fresh and verdant that it might require regular watering and pruning to keep it in order.

"Too bad it's not in my size," Amoretta said with a sigh.

Certainly, nothing was likely to be in her size. She probably needed lingerie from the children's section, which clearly did not exist. Ruefully she patted at her familiar flat chest as she admired the beautiful and intricate designs of the pieces on display.

Just then, her prayers were answered. It certainly felt like a very authentic experience of divine intervention.

"Everything in this shop can be fitted to anyone's size," confided the very pretty clerk, who saw to everyone's needs promptly, despite the cockatoo on her shoulder that continually sang along to the radio, loudly. "No matter how big or small a person is, their dreams can come true here," she said with a smile.

"So long as their dreams involve underwear," the cockatoo said, then continued on with his spirited rendition of 'come to my window.'

At that moment, Amoretta felt that very many of her dreams involved underwear.

There were frilly pieces and lacy pieces, black, red, pink, white, blue, green, and yellow, fitted pieces and flowing pieces. There were racy pieces and demure ones. There were lovely underthings that would have matched any person's mood, no matter their personal character.

It was a sort of underwear paradise.

There was also a very pretty set of underthings that purported to shift colors based on the emotions of the person wearing it. Amoretta giggled to Ellen as she elbowed her in the ribs.

"If I wore that set it'd be bright red all the time - not out of passion or anything, but because I'd be so embarrassed!"

Ellen laughed at Amoretta's joke, but it came off a bit nervous and strained.

_Maybe she's embarrassed by all the underwear_ , Amoretta thought. _I guess it is a little embarrassing, but we are all girls here. Well. I mean, except for Professor Finch._

He was engrossed in studying a very ephemeral set of underwear that might had been intended for performance art. It looked as if it were made of dew, spider webs, and swan feathers. Amoretta thought he might be admiring its astonish feats of structural engineering. There did not seem to be much holding it together at all.

Maybe he was moved to study it out of piety.

If magic could not keep it up, prayers would clearly have to suffice.

Still entranced by the comfortable dreamland of underthings, Amoretta wandered over to a display of pretty trays of neatly arranged panties. As she looked at them, she observed, "Just standing here staring at them is sort of relaxing."

Ellen made another embarrassed sound, but Amoretta was surprised to find that Suki had come up beside them to stare at the panties.

"I understand just what you mean," she said seriously. "I really like these," she said, pointing to a pair with crystal embellishments.

"Oh, me too!" agreed Amoretta. "And these too, with the little ribbons!"

"Side ties," Suki said very sagely.

"I know!" agreed Amoretta with enthusiasm.

This led to a deep discussion of the merits of the various pairs of panties on display. At the end of it, Amoretta felt like she'd become much closer to Suki. She'd also elected to buy six new pairs of panties.

_Well, he did say I ought to buy some souvenirs of the experience,_ she thought to herself. _I guess I'm going to buy souvenir panties._

There were so many cute sets of matched lingerie to choose from, Amoretta had a difficult time deciding on one set. She had sense enough to realize that she could not take home half a dozen dainty teddies. Her expense account did have its limits, after all. Where on earth would she store a closet full of teddies when they went back to school anyway? She would need a separate trunk just for underwear.

As if she had read her mind, Suki piped up. "I think it would be cute if they made teddies with teddies on them. Bears I mean. Maybe in the lace. I would like that."

"That would be cute," Amoretta agreed with conviction. She thought about it some more. "Do you think I ought to buy cat ears?" She wondered seriously. "I really want to buy cat ears."

"Cats are very cute," Suki agreed, equally serious. "I like them," she said. "I think you should buy cat ears."

And so the cat ears went into her shopping basket.

Ellen had unfortunately excused herself some minutes earlier, so Amoretta could not ask for a second opinion.

Four pairs of stockings went into her basket, and still she had not yet decided on the perfect special set. At last she captured Professor Finch by the arm and dragged him over to look at her choices. She needed his professional opinion, she declared.

"What do you think about laces?" she wanted to know. "Not just laces like corsetry laces, the kind of laces that have some kind of function. What do you think about decorative laces? Also, do you think I'd make a very convincing succubus? I am a little worried I wouldn't be so very convincing."

"Girl," Rail Finch said with a guffaw, "I am certain you could convince that man of _anything_ if you put your mind to it."

"Succubus it is," she said, her decision made. Rail Finch found that had successfully and painlessly given his professional opinion and retired to study the strange arrangement of feathers and filament again.

Amoretta gladly brought her little basket to the shop keeper and was hustled into a curtained alcove for some discreet measurements. It was all done before she could turn around, and then her purchases were being packed away in colored paper and ribbon.

"I don't have to wait for them to be altered?" Amoretta asked in surprise.

The clerk with the cockatoo on her shoulder shook her head.

"No darling. They've already been altered as much as they need to be," she said with a reassuring smile.

Amoretta paid for her purchases and then drifted over to Ellen, who seemed to have something on her mind. She had watched Amoretta's transaction very carefully.

"I can't believe that we can come in here and buy scandalous underwear and no one even blinks, but the moment we try to buy books, suddenly we're carded," Ellen said crossly.

"That was pretty surprising," Amoretta admitted. "I mean, I understand about tracking the distribution of theoretical magic books, but I really didn't expect it to cover cookbooks too." She paused, "Although I don't really think they ought to check my ID when I buy underwear either."

"Well, maybe not," Ellen said slowly, after thinking it over carefully.

With some difficulty Raven managed to tear herself away from several exquisite pieces that were a deep oxblood red. Rather unfortunately she did not have her own expense account and she had very little ready cash, being a rebellious teen runaway. New chiffon and lace confections would have to wait until a later date.

"It would be super weird if I bought Raven underwear as a present, right?" Amoretta asked Ellen in a conspiratory whisper. "Because I can tell she'd like something, but that's weird right? I shouldn't do that, right?"

"Yes, it's weird!" Ellen hissed back immediately. "Do _not_ encourage her. Who knows how she'd take a present like that. Probably as an invitation."

"As an invitation to what?" Amoretta asked, both intrigued and appalled all at once. She hadn't had any such premeditated motivations. She had wanted nothing more than to be a thoughtful friend.

"I don't know!" Ellen nearly shrieked, turning bright red as Suki turned to look at her curiously. "But whatever it is, you don't want to invite her to it. You want to lock the door and claim no one is at home, or that you've both got the measles," she finished in a furious whisper, and then fairly dragged Amoretta out of the store.

Raven followed placidly behind them, and Rail Finch followed, herding Suki along before him like a little lamb. Glen Sparkle sauntered out last of all, hands in her pockets, whistling Rhapsody in Blue.

* * *

 

By the time the five o'clock bells tolled in the Court of Figs, Amoretta was glad to sit herself down on the edge of Lady Liberty's fountain and give her feet a rest. The three other girls and Glen Sparkle followed suit, while Rail Finch stood idly with his hands behind his back, watching the flow of traffic on the street.

Because he was standing and facing the crowds, he was the first to see Grabiner as he and William returned to their group. Amoretta saw the recognition on his face and hopped to her own feet so she could greet Grabiner as he arrived.

He had waved at Finch as he approached, and his arm was still up when he saw Amoretta. He gave her his brief, quiet smile and she felt warm inside.

_It really is okay_ , she thought with relief. _Everything is okay._

Trailing behind Grabiner, William was laden down with purchases: boxes and bags filled his arms, and several floated near him as he walked, caught in a spell tether.

Grabiner, on the other hand, carried only a bouquet of roses, which Amoretta realized quite belatedly were for her.

Unexpectedly, she felt the blood rush to her face and she covered her cheeks with her hands, hopping up and down unsteadily several times.

She felt light-headed.

It had really happened. It had really happened just as she had imagined in a distracted day dream when she ought to have been teaching her geranium to sing.

He had brought her roses, red roses. He had brought her red roses because he loved her.

It was astonishing.

The cow had jumped over the moon yet again.

He carried the roses as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if the sight of Hieronymous Grabiner carrying roses ought to be commonplace and unremarkable, not something that demanded photographic evidence, fingerprints, and eye-witness testimony.

He had given her may flowers for her hair and taken her by the hand on the dance floor. He had given her a garden filled with beauty and music, and a home that was warm and sweet and safe. And now he had brought her flowers that were as red as his heart, not as a weak apology, but as a strong reminder of his passion and his commitment.

He had not needed to think about it, or to ask. It had been clear to him as it was now clear to her.

What he meant to say was something that was said with red roses.

They needed no special occasion, because every day was their occasion.

Every day was wreathed in roses.

It made her heart race just thinking about it.

_Does anyone else knows what this feels like? A_ moretta wondered, riding the giddiness. _Can they? Can they?_ That seemed impossible to her. It was impossible for anyone else to know what a treasure this was: getting flowers from a man reluctant to give any part of himself away.

He would never give her flowers without intention. Of this she was certain.

Upon closer inspection it really was a very elegant bouquet. That wasn't terribly surprising. She didn't think Grabiner would have bothered to buy her flowers that didn't give the impression that they stayed at the Ritz when they went on vacation. Based on the hand soap, dish towels, shoes, and chocolates that he bought, she suspected he might actually break into hives if he touched something that didn't threaten to overdraw a bank account due to sheer proximity.

They were fine flowers, certainly, probably some of the finest she had ever received - and her father sent her beautiful flowers every year on her birthday, and more recently at Christmas. But more than their obvious pedigree, their spicy tea sweetness, and their lovely silk ribbon, what made these roses remarkable was that they were _from_ _Grabiner_.

She felt terribly silly - overjoyed - but silly, and when she finally met his eyes again as he came upon their group, she laughed, still hopping and dancing in place.

He lightly tapped the top of her head with the bouquet, as if giving her a gentle correction, and she was enveloped in the sound of rustling colored paper and the smell of the heavy, damp petals.

_Perhaps she is a pawn that has been queened,_ Madame Belle has said.

She _felt_ queened. At that moment she felt as if she were queen of the universe.

The he smiled again briefly and offered her the roses.

"You never fail to give an extraordinary performance," he noted with amusement. "I ought to have brought you six dozen. I think you might have expired right on the spot. We'd have had to call paramedics."

Amoretta laughed into her bouquet - which was only two dozen, by quick estimation - and then sidled warmly up to Grabiner like a little cat intent to rub his ankles and trip him up.

Grabiner enjoyed her mild attention, then all at once he stiffened, and Amoretta looked up to see that he was no longer pleasantly amused.

"Heya brown eyes," Glen Sparkle said with a grin. "Seems like life's been treatin' you pretty well!"

Immediately, Grabiner frowned and shot a questioning look at Finch, who raised his hands in resignation. His meaning was clear: this was not his fight or his business.

Grabiner's frown deepened and at last his voice rumbled out.

"To what do we owe the pleasure, Miss," he looked very put upon, "Sparkle?"

"Just felt the urge to look up one of my favorite teachers and see how he was doing," she said mildly. "I mean, after all, you can't believe everything you read in the newspapers," she said with a wink. "And whatdayaknow, I made a new friend today! I'm a big fan of the little missus. Good things come in small packages, or so I've heard."

"Thank you for your interest, professionally motivated though it may be," Grabiner said dryly, "But neither I nor my wife is interested in speaking with the press at the moment."

"Oh, I know," Glen Sparkle said with a companionable wave. "I'm not here in my professional capacity today. I'm just catching up on old times, hearin' about the Academy, all of that."

Grabiner gave her a look that clearly communicated the fact that he was not convinced.

"She was your student, right?" Amoretta asked curiously, tugging lightly on his arm. "She just wants to have lunch with us. That's all right, isn't it?"

He looked down to see her with the bouquet of roses clasped to her chest, her eyes as soulful as any porcelain puppy sculpted purely for the purpose of looking soulful.

Grabiner thought of himself as being a hard man, but he wasn't _that_ hard.

He made a noise that was somewhere between a grumble and a sigh and communicated pure discontent.

"All right," he said dismissively. "She can come along to dinner with us." He fixed Glen Sparkle with a critical stare, "So long as she understands that if she prints anything in the least bit derogatory about either of us singly, both of us together, or anyone at all whom we know _, I will sue her."_

"Whoah, stand down there Matlock," Glen Sparkle said, raising her hands in surrender. "I intend to behave myself. Don't worry so much. I've already promised not to print anything, and I intend to keep that promise until advised otherwise. I'm not a gossip monger. I don't need to scrape the bottom of the street to get material."

Grabiner frowned and said, "I know you don't." Then he shrugged, as if he considered their conversation over. "Come along," he said to the group at large. "I've already made a reservation."

* * *

 

Amoretta was pleased to discover that Grabiner had arranged for reservations at a breezy Italian restaurant. She could eat her weight in pasta, and was particularly hungry after a day of trauma, shopping, and sightseeing. She was also delighted to discover that there was a four page dessert menu.

There were few things that healed hurts of the psyche as well as sweets.

_Too bad I couldn't just eat ice cream to fix whatever it was Damien did to me,_ Amoretta thought absently,

She happily brandished the dessert menu at Grabiner as they sat down, tapping on it for emphasis. He gave her one of his brief, flickering smiles.

"I thought you'd like it," was all he said.

They naturally broke into two groups to sit at the brightly painted patio sets, which were arranged to seat four at once. Amoretta was unsurprised to find that Glen Sparkle had settled at their table, but Suki made an unexpected fourth.

She was also apparently highly interested in the dessert menu. After studying it diligently, she had one thing to say.

"I don't have any money," she volunteered seriously.

Amoretta started and immediately looked soulfully at her put-upon husband.

He waved Suki off idly.

"Don't be concerned," he said. "It's my treat today. Order whatever you like." He fixed Glen Sparkle with a critical stare. "But please don't imagine that I intend to buy you dinner," he said with a frown.

She shrugged and winked at him.

"It's okay Prof. I'm not on the ten cent tour any more. I can buy my own dinner. I'm not even gonna put it on my expense account, being as this is just an evening between friends," she said as she idly unfolded her napkin. "I have decided that you and the little missus are grade A pal material."

"I'm thrilled at the news," Grabiner said dryly.

"I've always liked you, brown eyes," Glen reiterated. "You know me. I've got an affection for weird, perverse, awkward people. Not that there are any people like that at this table."

Before Grabiner could respond to this sly remark, Suki interjected.

"I'm not sure about the third thing, but based on the reactions of other people, I think I might be weird." She paused and then added, "And awkward."

Glen Sparkle gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder.

"Well kiddo, two out of three ain't bad," she said with a grin,

_Glen seems to take everything in stride_ , Amoretta thought to herself. _She's certainly setting the pace of the conversation._

The conversation halted as they ordered, and Amoretta was struck by Suki's ingenuity. She ordered a dessert for before her meal and a different one for after it.

_I guess she's going to have her cake and eat it twice,_ Amoretta mused.

She let herself be satisfied with one piece of cake and an order of baked ziti.

Glen chattered on idly with Amoretta until the food arrived, asking her about her school life, and relating various anecdotes from her own time at Iris Academy.

They were just finishing up their salads when she tapped the table thoughtfully with a forefinger.

"Just out of curiosity," Glen wondered idly, "Do you ever talk to Miriam? You know she was appointed as assistant inquisitor about year ago, right? The youngest ever, so far as I understand it."

Grabiner froze for a moment on hearing the name, but it was a very subtle tell. Amoretta didn't think the reporter noticed anything unnatural about Grabiner's response. He simply looked bored and put upon as he answered, "No, I do not."

"That's a shame," Glen said idly. "You two used to be tighter than a new pair of shoes. Of course, I suppose that follows. These days you're a married man, am I right? Not exactly the best time to go chatting up Miss Yesterday."

"Miriam?" Amoretta asked curiously, tilting her head to the side.

Glen's eyes shifted to Amoretta briefly, and she gave a rueful grin. "Oh, I hadn't realized that this was a verboten topic. Pardon me, Mrs. I meant no offense," Glen said, touching the top of her hat. She shifted her attention to Grabiner again. "I thought you might keep in touch with her seeing as she's running around your old stomping grounds. I hope I haven't put my foot in it."

Grabiner frowned and then made a long suffering sigh and sat his fork to the side of his salad plate. "It is not a verboten topic. No, I have not communicated with Miss Snowe in some years. I believe our involvement was a mistake on my part. I am gratified to hear that she is doing well. She was a gifted student. Her success does not surprise me in the least." Then he looked pointedly at Amoretta and said, "Miss Snowe was one of my students the first year I taught at Iris Academy. I was a young man then, fresh from grief, and I cannot say I made the best decisions, for myself or for my students. I let my professional life and my private life become tangled, and I ended up being overly familiar with one of my students. After the school year ended, I came to my senses and responsibly broke it off."

Glen Sparkle laughed and her fork clinked against her glass. "That's sure one way of putting it. It's a good thing you _don't_ talk to Miriam," Glen said. "I don't think she'd take being called a mistake very well, Miss Perfect One Hundred and Twelve Percent. I'm pretty sure that wasn't within tolerable margins of error," here Glen flashed air quotes. "I also have a feeling that's not the way she thinks about things. Knowing her, she's still way hung up on you. Miri never did know when to quit. All that's water under the bridge, I guess. And you know - Who am I to judge? You'd know your private affairs best, Professor."

Amoretta had been thoughtfully digesting this exchange since Miriam Snowe's name had come up, and all at once she made a connection.

"Ah," Amoretta said, realization dawning on her face. "Miriam Snowe was the girl you danced with at the May Day ball the last time you went!" She felt quite impressed by her own deductive reasoning. It certainly made sense. If Miriam Snowe had been the last person involved with Grabiner before her, she did had to be his mystery dance partner, unless he'd gone dancing with Professor Finch or something.

That surely would have been a sight to see. Sadly the dates did not mesh. Finch had arrived at Iris Academy in ninety five, by his own admission. Grabiner had last been dancing well before this date.

Apparently Amoretta had had it right from the first.

"Sure as shootin'," Glen confirmed with a wink, then sized Amoretta up. "You sure ain't taking it too hard."

"Why would I?" Amoretta asked in confusion.

"Well, no reason really," Glen said with a shrug. "The Prof just told us he hasn't spoken to Miriam in years, so I guess you'd have no real reason to get bent out of shape."

"Oh, I wouldn't mind if he still talked to her," Amoretta said absently. "After all, I'm pretty sure she sent us a wedding present - some cheese knives I think. That was very nice of her."

"You're either balls confident or goofy in the head. Either way, I like you. So you're not threatened at all by this mysterious, talented, accomplished, beautiful woman from the Prof's past?" Glen asked with interest.

"Now see here - " Grabiner interjected crossly. "That is _without_ _question_ none of your business - "

"No?" Amoretta answered curiously. "I mean, I have no reason to be. The fact that he had a relationship with Miriam in the past doesn't diminish the relationship we have now. That doesn't make any sense," she said, shaking her head. "I'm not jealous or anything, just sort of interested in this person. I like learning things about Hieronymous. I bet he was cute the first year he taught," she giggled into her hand.

"Well, he wasn't hard on the eyes," Glen agreed, tapping the table lightly with her index finger. "He never has been. And it was pretty cute to see him all spic n' span and keeping kids in order who were almost the same age as he was," she laughed. "Just to be clear, I was a sophomore the first year Professor Grabiner taught at Iris Academy. Miriam was a graduating senior. As I recall, they first got involved with one another because of a prank letter one of the freshman wrote during initiation."

Amoretta laughed out loud at that and gave Grabiner her crooked smile.

"You weren't fibbing when you said that was a school tradition," she said with pleasure.

"Yes, the student body has a time-honored tradition of harassing me. It's wonderful that the students can bond over such an important ritual," he said crossly. Fortunately Amoretta could tell that he was not deeply upset, simply a bit testy about the subject of their conversation. She would not have pressed forward otherwise.

"Anyway, they got pretty close over the course of the school year. They were a popular topic of discussion for the rumor mill, if you know what I mean," Glen said. "Everybody figured that when Miriam graduated - well, I guess we all figured it would be out in the open after that. The Prof was pretty much her straight up boyfriend at that point. It didn't take someone with a nose for news to discern _that_. But that's not how it played out. No steppin' out with my baby, if you get my drift." She looked at Grabiner again thoughtfully, then said. "I'm just going to float this one out there, based on what you said earlier, but you didn't break it off in person, did you?"

Grabiner frowned more deeply. "Miss Sparkle, as I have reiterated time and and time again, that is none of your business," he said curtly.

"Oh man," Glen said, covering her eyes with her hands. "I was right. You broke it off over the phone or something. No wonder she was so fit to be tied. Not the classiest move on your part, Prof. Not that I've got any room to talk. My love life is DOA: Don't Even Ask."

"Uhhh," said Amoretta, "Don't you mean DEA?"

"Yeah, I guess it's bad enough for the Feds to investigate it," she said with a shrug, the focused on Grabiner again with a prompting look.

"I probably could have handled it better, yes," Grabiner said darkly. "But again I fail to see how this concerns you, Miss Sparkle."

Glen idly waved him off. "I'm just an interested party, is all. Honestly I'm glad to see you happy, Prof. Married life obviously suits you pretty well, and I genuinely like the little missus. It's a shame about Miri, but ships passing in the night and all that. I've always been fond of you, brown eyes, even though I know you're not keen on being liked. The long and the short of it is that you're a good guy and you deserve to be happy," Glen said with another shrug. "And don't get your panties in a bunch. I'm not gonna print any of this. I never planned to. I just like knowing stuff. It puts things into perspective."

"I'm touched," Grabiner answered dryly. "That certainly saves me the trouble of suing you."

"I know you would too," Glen said, leaning back in her chair. She studied Amoretta again. "I have to say, you are not what I expected. Anyway, you seem to have everything under control, so I salute you." She glanced at her watch. "Anyway, I hate to cut 'n run, but I've always got deadlines. It's like they print the paper five times a day." She stood and then moved to pat Amoretta lightly on the head. "It was nice meetin' you kid. Invite me up to the house one weekend and we'll chew the fat. You're cute and I like you. Anyway, never forget that you've got a sympathetic ear among the ladies and gentlemen of the press."

And with that, Glen Sparkle took her leave.

The dessert arrived (in this case, Suki's second) and Amoretta found contentment in a piece of cheesecake sauced with blueberries and finished with whipped cream. She was sitting with a dollop of whipped cream on the end of her fork when she was struck forcibly by the daemon of inspiration.

"I just had the best idea!" Amoretta said with excitement.

"And what might that be?" Grabiner asked warily.

"We should have a picnic, out at Mystery Lake!" She said, patting her hands against the tabletop in delight at her cleverness. "That way Suki and Minnie could come! They missed out on the slumber party. And I could invited Logan and the boys too, Manuel, Jacob, maybe even Big Steve! And we could have Virginia over again! We could play lawn games, and maybe go swimming, and have a big picnic lunch! That would be super great!"

"I hope you don't imagine that all these various and sundry miscreants might be entertained as our personal house guests," he said dryly. "They wouldn't possibly fit into the one remaining spare room at Revane even if you packed them in like sardines."

"Oh I know," Amoretta said with and idle wave. I'll ask the headmistress if the school can put them up for the night. It'd be just one night, after all. I'm sure she'd allow it."

Grimly, Grabiner reflected that Amoretta was most certainly correct. The headmistress seemed to glean unknown delights from aiding and abetting his wife with her schemes.

At that moment, Suki broke in very seriously.

"I would very much like to go to your picnic," she said.

"Oh, please invite Vovo too!" Amoretta said with enthusiasm.

"Try to keep your guest list under three hundred people," Grabiner said with exasperation. "I don't believe you're quite ready for your society debut. That being said, don't even think about inviting Glenjamin Sparkle to your little picnic."

"I won't, I won't," Amoretta said with a laugh. "Other that Vovo, I'll just invite classmates from the Academy. I won't get carried away."

Grabiner gave her a look.

"Well, I mean, I'll only get _a_ _little_ carried away, I promise," she said, sticking her tongue out cutely.

Grabiner sighed and said, "Very well. Make the arrangements with Cord once we get home. At this point I am resigned to find all the world on our front step."

Amoretta was delighted. It was true: she was not yet ready for her society debut, but she was more than ready to play hostess.

She would have her picnic, and it would surely be splendid.

* * *

 

After their delightful meal, their day in the Court of Figs had officially concluded successfully. They left Suki before the window of the chocolate shop with the promise of a picnic invitation shining in her serious eyes.

Amoretta walked next to Grabiner as they headed back to the Court of Corridors and the green enameled door that would take them back to Vermont.

She carried nothing but her roses, Grabiner having pressed her other packages onto William, who was laden down like a little pack animal.

It was at this point that Amoretta took notice of a large wicker basket that William was carrying by means of a spell tether.

"What's that?" Amoretta asked with curiosity.

"It's a surprise," Grabiner said with faint amusement.

Amoretta's curiosity was immediately piqued.

"What kind of surprise?" she wanted to know.

"The kind of surprise that will surprise you," he answered evenly.

For the rest of their journey home, Amoretta played a one-sided game of twenty questions over the contents of the wicker basket. When it seemed as if her interest had waned, she would pop up with another question which Grabiner would answer with a vague non-answer. He also refused to let her get close enough to verify the contents of the basket herself, setting William as its guard.

"You may have it once we get home," Grabiner said patiently.

Amoretta agreed pleasantly, but then promptly began asking questions again.

Fortunately for her, Grabiner remained in idle good humor their entire ride home.

By the time they pulled into the parking circle at Iris Academy and Rail Finch and Ellen left their little party, Amoretta was nearly humming with curiosity, fidgeting in her seat.

Packing four adults and all their packages into Gertrude required some doing, and the wicker basket ended up tantalizingly close to Amoretta, wedged onto the bench seat between she and Grabiner. If might have been a very uncomfortable fit if they had been driving for over five miles.

It was with the unusual package at her elbow that Amoretta made a startling discovery.

"Hieronymous!" Amoretta cried out in amazement, "The basket is _meowing_!"

"Ah," Grabiner said with a shrug. "She must have woken up."

"Why is the basket meowing?" Amoretta asked with wide eyes and an open mouth.

"Well," Grabiner said with a low chuckle, "Either it is a very peculiar basket, or there is something inside the basket that generally communicates by way of such noises."

"A cat?!" Amoretta demanded with pleasure and amazement.

"Well, it's certainly not a harp seal," he said with a laugh.

"Oh Hieronymous, I want to see her, I want to see her!" Amoretta cried, wriggling jubilantly. "Whose cat is it? Is it your cat?"

"This is why I would not tell you what was in the basket," Grabiner said with a huff through his nose. "You'd have wanted to have her out right there in the middle of the Court of Figs. And no, it is not my cat. It is your cat. There's a pyewacket in that basket. You might think of her as a cat with sensitivity to magic, just as you are a girl with sensitivity to magic."

"So she's like a cat witch?" Amoretta asked, deeply interested.

"Precisely," Grabiner agreed. "She has been in training since mid-march. She will be your service animal as well as your familiar. Remember when I told you that there were ways to keep night haunts off of you? That is one of this young lady's duties. She'll assist you with other things as well."

"Aaah," Amoretta squealed, overcome with delight. "I bet she's _adorable_!"

"Beyond adorable, she will most certainly be _competent_ ," he said, turning the key and pulling it out of the ignition. "But yes, I believe that you will be wholly satisfied with her once you see her. I hand picked her to suit you."

"I want to see her!" Amoretta reminded him anxiously.

"Meow!" said the little cat, as if in agreement.

Grabiner rolled his eyes.

"Wait until we get inside," he insisted.

* * *

 

It took a bit of time to get the car unpacked and once again secured under enchantment, but at last everyone and everything was safely inside the bubble of Revane. Amoretta obediently followed her husband into his workshop, with her eyes glued to the little wicker basket. The promise of making a new friend had driven even the excitement of new underwear completely out of her brain.

Grabiner sat the little wicker carrier down and unlatched the door. There was a tentative, delicate white paw, and then out came the prettiest little cat that Amoretta had ever seen, with one clear green eye the color of the moon and a fluffy little tail like a brush of silk. Her other eye was tightly closed.

She was a patchwork of colors: orange like light through amber, brown like the old wood of the floor upstairs, black like the bottle of ink on the corner of the desk, and all on a field of snowy white. There was a deep blue collar around her neck with a little golden bell on it and a ribbon tied up in a bow. She made a trilling sound in the back of her throat as she looked first at Grabiner's shoe, then up at his face. She rubbed her cheek against one of his boots then turned in Amoretta's direction.

Her little tail was up in an inquisitive question mark.

"Rrrrr?" she seemed to ask.

Amoretta promptly dropped to the cat's level to meet her.

After one cursory sniff the little cat was soon happily butting her head against Amoretta's, and rubbing her cheek all over Amoretta's face. Amoretta giggled at all this unexpected affection. Generally it took a little more time than this before she could make best friends with a creature.

"She's so friendly!" Amoretta laughed with delight.

"She already knows you," Grabiner assured her. "She's been sleeping with one of your socks and an old t shirt since I picked her out."

"So that's what you wanted those for," Amoretta giggled. "I had _begun_ _to_ _wonder_."

"Yes, I clearly have a fetish for your dirty laundry," Grabiner said dryly, then moved to his desk to pull out chalk and a brush.

"Well, there's no telling with you, is there?" Amoretta teased.

Grabiner grimaced.

"What's her name?" Amoretta wanted to know.

"Dinah," Grabiner said shortly.

The little cat trilled in response.

Amoretta clapped her hands.

"Dinah, just like - " she began and he nodded.

"Yes, Alice," he answered promptly. "Although no exiting through rabbit holes without an appropriate escort."

"Yessir!" she said smartly, and although he expected her to salute, she did not, being engrossed in getting to know her new feline friend.

Grabiner knelt and began laying out a circle.

"Once the ritual to bind Dinah's heart to yours has been completed she will become your familiar for the rest of her life, which ought to be a considerable span. Familiars don't age as ordinary animals age, since they draw upon their partner's magic to help maintain their bodies," he explained. "Once you are appropriately bound you will be able to converse with her. You will be able to understand her thoughts as if they were words, and she will be able to understand yours as well. The familiar binding ritual grants a bit of your soul to her. You will share this in common. No one will be able to understand her as you do, although she will generally be able to understand others if they speak to her. She will no longer be an ordinary cat - not even an ordinary witch cat. She will be a part of you, and you will be a part of her. Expect her to behave not as a cat but as a small person who simply happens to look like a cat."

Amoretta nodded, her cheeks flushing. She had picked Dinah up and was holding her like a baby.

"I'm very excited," she confessed.

"Yes," he said, "I imagine you are." He glanced over at his desk. "There's a book open on the desk with the oath you'll have to recite, if you would like to familiarize yourself with it."

Amoretta nodded and trotted over to the desk with the small cat tucked up under her chin.

At last, Grabiner had finished ascribing the circle and got up off his knees. Amoretta was still holding the purring cat close to her chest. He offered her his hand and she had to shift the small cat around a bit to take it, but then he drew her into the circle like he was leading her in a dance.

"Are you ready?" he asked her gently, and she nodded. "Then begin at any time," he said.

Amoretta took a deep breath, and then spoke the oath she had committed to memory.

"Oh, Dinah," she said softly, "Innocent heart, alive with the simple pleasure of living, drink of my spirit and gain the knowledge that will bring you sorrow as well as joy. I will pour my heart forth, into you. Follow as my shadow, as my moon, for the whole of my life, and I will shine upon you like the sun. From the root to the crown I bless you, and I ask for your blessings in return."

The little cat seemed to get very warm against her chest and Amoretta felt a shiver slipping up her spine. There was the sound of bells and chimes, and she realized that both she and the cat were glowing, shimmering, even as tinkling filled the air. Grabiner still held her hand, and the golden glow danced along her arm and into his hand, where it flashed along his body in half a breath, burying itself somewhere in his core.

As the golden light burned off her body, Amoretta felt a wave of weakness pass over her and swayed on her feet.

Grabiner reacted as soon as he felt her falter, and moved to catch her before she fell, bracing her up with his body. She lost her hold on the cat in her weakness, but the little animal sprang down unperturbed and began rolling around on the floor.

Amoretta drew one of her hands to her face, closing her eyes and trying to shake off the weakness. Grabiner held her steadily, and she relaxed in his arms, feeling exhausted. As she hung there, limp, she felt the brush of his fingertips along her back and heard the sound of a spell.

Immediately strength flooded into her and she managed to find her balance on her own two feet again. As she stood, still loose in his arms and drawn against his chest, she heard him say, "I was right to take precautions. You may be healthier than you were in the spring, but you're still delicate."

"I sure felt it," Amoretta admitted, brushing her hand across her forehead. She shook her head briefly, trying to shake off the fog and asked, "Did I mess everything up because I got faint?" she worried. "Are we going to have to try again?"

"You did wonderfully," Grabiner reassured, then gestured toward the ground, where the little cat was apparently in ecstasies.

As Amoretta looked at her, the trilling noises the cat made seemed to become clearer in her mind, until she could understand what the small animal meant to say.

_Dinah! Dinah! The best name is Dinah! The best cat is Dinah! The prettiest cat is Dinah,_ the little cat was thinking happily, rubbing against Amoretta's shoes.

"Dinah, you are working," Grabiner said gravely and all of the sudden Dinah sat down sharply, curling her tail around her feet, and gave Amoretta her full attention. She was like a perfect little statuette of a cat.

_That's right. Dinah is working,_ she thought, and seemed very determined.

"Oh, good grief!" squealed Amoretta, dropping to scoop her new familiar up. "She's even more adorable than she was before!"

_Mistress, mistress, Dinah is working,_ the cat reminded her seriously. _Dinah loves the mistress, who is the best person, but don't distract Dinah from her job or Dinah can't protect the mistress properly!_ Her little tail was flipping slightly.

"Ah, I'm sorry, Dinah!" Amoretta apologized and immediately returned Dinah to the ground.

"The mistress will have to learn the rules as well as Dinah knows them," Grabiner agreed seriously.

_When Dinah is working, no cuddles,_ Dinah said. _The mistress can say 'Good Dinah' and be kind to Dinah, but no playing or treats or snuggles because Dinah is working. Dinah wants snuggles. Dinah wants treats. Dinah wants cuddles. Dinah wants to play, but only after work. Dinah has an important job._

"That's right," Grabiner said with a nod. "You have a very important job indeed. I am glad you are aware of your responsibilities."

_Dinah loves the Mister too,_ Dinah said, shifting her front paws slightly as if she were anxious. _Dinah knows that no one loves the Mistress more than the Mister, not even Dinah. Don't worry, Mister. Dinah will do her job well and take good care of the Mistress._

"I'm counting on you," Grabiner said, dropping to one knee so her could regard the little cat closer to her own level. He brushed his hand over her spine once and added, "Good girl."

Amoretta had listened to their exchange in a daze, overcome by the previously inconceivable and monstrously appealing spectacle of Grabiner having a serious conversation with a fluffy, half grown cat. As Grabiner got to his feet again, Amoretta clapped her hands against her cheeks.

"You can hear her!" Amoretta realized with amazement. "I thought I was supposed to be the only one who could hear her without using a communication spell - "

Grabiner shrugged.

"Given the fact that we share a soul in common, I suspected that this scenario might be possible," he said. "I thought carefully about how to lay out the circle with that result in mind, although I couldn't be certain that it would work. This is somewhat uncharted territory, after all," he admitted wryly, then shrugged. "It is certainly convenient to be able to speak with Dinah directly."

_If the Mistress has no other requests, Dinah will begin hunting,_ Dinah said.

Amoretta looked to Grabiner for an answer, and he nodded. "That should be fine," he said.

Amoretta smiled at the little cat and nodded herself. "Thank you, Dinah," she said. "I really appreciate it."

The small cat trilled her happiness then cocked her head to the side.

_Is Dinah allowed the privilege of getting on the furniture?_ she asked, the tip of her tail twitching slightly. _Dinah considers the sofa to be a good base of operations._

Grabiner laughed and said, "Sleep anywhere you like. Good hunting, Dinah."

_Thank you Mister,_ Dinah said. _Goodnight Mistress. Dinah hunts._

And with that, Dinah trotted over to the old sofa and after a wriggle managed to jump up onto it. She seemed to dance in place as she kneaded the cushion with her paws, then she turned around three times and promptly curled up to sleep, tucking her tail around her nose.

Amoretta watched the little ball of fluff rise and fall slightly as Dinah breathed. It was a soothing sight, warm and sweet. After a moment, she turned to Grabiner.

"Is she going to be all right?" Amoretta asked in a whisper, biting her lip.

Grabiner chuckled softly. "Trust you to be concerned about the well-being of your own service animal while she's doing her job. She will be fine," Grabiner reassured. "She may not look very fierce, but there are no finer dream hunters than well trained pyewackets," he said.

"I would have liked to cuddle her a little more before she went off to work," Amoretta said, shifting on her feet slightly.

"You'll have plenty of time to cuddle her in the future," Grabiner advised. "She's now your bonded companion for life," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "For now, let her work. What she wants most is to keep you safe, and despite how well guarded this place is, it certainly has its share of night haunts and other nightmares. Shower her with your affection once she gets done with her first hunt. I'm sure she'll appreciate it."

"All right," Amoretta admitted, still showing a faint pout. "I'll cuddle her and cuddle her when she finishes."

"For now," Grabiner said, "We ought to let her sleep," he paused, "And hunt."

Amoretta nodded, and they both quietly left the sleeping cat to her work.

* * *

 

It was during the warm afternoon of the next day that Grabiner called Amoretta to his workshop. The little cat came on her heels, the golden bell on her neck ringing merrily. She hopped upon the sofa and promptly went to sleep.

William was already in the workshop, standing with his hands folded behind his back, patiently waiting.

"His trial apprenticeship is over," Grabiner explained to her seriously and Amoretta nodded, realizing at once that she had been called into the room not as a student or even really as a wife, but rather as the mistress of the house and Grabiner's partner in all things. Amoretta gave William an encouraging smile, then turned her attention to Grabiner.

Grabiner was pacing back and forth - six steps, turn, six steps, turn. He was deep in thought, and his thoughts were troubled.

The time of trial had come to a close. Despite the considerable work Grabiner had heaped upon William, the young man had completed all of his tasks admirably. He worked hard, was courteous, reliable, diligent, and responsible enough to be self directed. Grabiner could find no faults with him. And yet, despite everything, Grabiner was still reluctant to take him as an apprentice. The boy would be useful, it was true. Amoretta has been right on that score. And he could be polished into an even finer ally given time and guidance. Amoretta had been correct on that score as well.

But it was not in William's best interests. Even if the boy had not had a fine apprenticeship waiting for him in the city. Even if he had had no apprenticeship at all, simply an entry level job doing grunt work - anything would be better, safer, than becoming entangled in their affairs.

Becoming Grabiner's apprentice might very well be the beginning of the end for him. It could result in his death, or worse.

Grabiner warned William seriously one final time. Theirs was not a family with whom William ought to involve himself. It would come to no good ends.

But William was adamant.

"I suppose you have made your decision then," Grabiner asked seriously.

William nodded. "I have," he said.

"Very well," Grabiner said evenly, "Then I am ready to hear your oath, William Roger Danson." Glancing back toward Amoretta, he waved her over and was gratified when she promptly came to stand next to him. "Kneel," he said authoritatively.

William knelt.

Amoretta let her mind wander as Grabiner heard William's oath of fealty to their family. It was strange to think that she was really a grown girl with all the responsibilities of an adult, even if she was still not allowed to buy cookbooks without her husband's authorization.

Christmas. Professor Finch had told Ellen that she'd be ready for a class two license by Christmas break. Maybe Amoretta would be able to qualify for one at the same time if she studied diligently for the examination.

Amoretta would be going back to Iris Academy for her second year of schooling in September and already she felt that things had changed an impossible amount since the previous autumn. _She_ had changed. She was finding her place, learning how to live. It was a little frightening, but it was good.

It was very good.

As she drifted back to reality, Grabiner was helping William to his feet. They shook hands again and William obediently bent his head when Amoretta tugged on his arm. Amoretta patted his head affectionately, just as she might have patted Donald or Luke or Logan.

"Welcome to the family," Amoretta said with a smile.

"All right," Grabiner said seriously and Amoretta saw William steel himself for another ridiculous list of assignments, but then Grabiner snorted. "You've cleaned absolutely everything in this house. Go settle into your new room. You have the evening off."

William flashed them both a grin, then tugged his hair deferentially before turning on his heel and heading for the stairs.

After he had gone, Grabiner looked hard at the floor and said, "I hope I've done the right thing."

Amoretta's smile flickered briefly, but she sensed it was not words that he wanted, so she went to simply wrap her arms around his waist and lay her head against his chest.

He sighed.

"Come along," he said, setting her back on her feet. "I know you must still be tired from yesterday. Let's go have a rest."

And so they went up the stairs together, with the little belled cat following them.

* * *

 

Later that evening, after a luxuriant nap against the warm bulk of her husband that left Amoretta feeling replenished, William found her in her little study, looking over some of her notes. Dinah was upside down in the little chair, with all four of her legs in the air. She appeared to be sleeping, which probably meant she was working.

Her husband's new apprentice had a box in his arms that appeared to be filled with a strange mixture of toys and junk.

"Master Grabiner asked that I bring this to you," he said. "These are the things that were in my room before I finished cleaning it out today. He says it's mostly stuff from his old nursery. He doesn't want it, but he thought you - "

He didn't have an opportunity to finish his thought before Amoretta had wrested the box away from him and plunked it on the ground for immediate investigation.

This was certain to be a treasure trove of Grabiner's childhood toys.

She could barely contain her excitement.

Sheepishly, she realized that he had yanked the box out of William's hands without properly thanking him and turned to apologize.

He just laughed.

"The professor warned me that you might have a reaction like that," William admitted with a grin. "Really, it's pretty cute."

"I'm already married!" she warned impishly with a waggling finger.

"Yeah, that becomes more and more apparent," he laughed, and then excused himself. He still had some things to do to get his room in order.

That was fine with Amoretta. She was anxious to explore the box of childhood antiquities before her. Glancing at the clock, she imagined she had a couple of hours before Grabiner finished working downstairs and was ready to retire. She wanted plenty of time to catalogue her new acquisitions without being disturbed: to cuddle teddy bears, delight over model airplanes, and giggle at picture books.

At the bottom of the box were half a dozen plain composition books of mixed colors. Wondering if she might have stumbled upon some of her husband's old lesson books, she pulled one out in delight and flipped it open to a random page and was surprised to find that the writing inside wasn't in her husband's familiar hand.

It was all in ink, and there was a roundness to the bluish script, and plenty of flourishes and other strange marks all over the page, although it was primarily filled with text.

_The night always comes._

_When at your lips and keys_

_Je savourais. I did. I did. I did. I did._

_Celebrating Christmas at the Grave. This place may be a tomb, but it's filled with secrets, ripe for an intrepid pair, and as a pair we are both ripe and intrepid. I cannot make the sun stand still, but together we can make him run like the hosts of hell are at his heels. I.e. This trip has been very educational in a personal sense._

_Mack threatened to drop in on us, but probably Hiero and I will be on our own for the duration. That suits. Girl and boy and boy get less done, really. It's not called a tete-a-tete-a-tete, after all. Otherwise, population at the Grave is a big fat goose egg apart from the regular staff, and they're avoiding us like we brought typhus back from the Cradle. Holidays before this one must have been_ _the pits_ _for the better glass half empty. Apparently Pater Familius dispatches gifts when he remembers Christmas exists, which isn't very often, as he is not known for his jolly holiday spirit. Hiero was right. Hel will be an alpine ski resort before the old man graces us with his presence. Good. I can't say I'm keen on the event when it happens._

" _Death is a debt we all must pay," observed carved into the cornice in the library. I was tempted to carve my own answer, "Therefore, let us live wickedly and well while we may." Somehow I doubt my wit will be appreciated as graffiti, no matter how pithy the epithet._

_The best we can hope for is to_ _continue being ignored_ _._

_There are cold fingers here, clutching fingers, corpse fingers, ice dry like the fingers of medicine. You can feel them on the small of your back when the wind cuts in. You lose your breath. It's forced out, like someone hit you hard in the chest._

_κόσμον τόνδε, τὸν αὐτὸν ἁπάντων, οὔτε τις θεῶν οὐτε ἀνθρώπων ἐποίησεν, ἀλλ' ἦν ἀεὶ καὶ ἔστιν καὶ ἔσται πῦρ ἀείζωον, ἁπτόμενον μέτρα καὶ ἀποσβεννύμενον μέτρα_

_turning and turning, turning around the sun_

_Heliocentrism, son._

_He and his trees of fire._

_I could know my home by a ring of candles, or a ring of bones. I will build our bower._

_Well of flame, in the darkness, draw up your ire_

_draw up your fierce blood_

_Paint my name across your skin._

_It is too cold to dwell in the open mouth of a grave._

_Man, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out._

_I'll light the fire, and let it burn._

_ViVa December 23, 1984_

Dizzy, Amoretta flipped to another page to find it was also filled with the strange round handwriting, although on this page, the ink was a different color. It began -

_If you can make the center of two circles coincide -_

And then another page -

_He can be such a stupid prat -_

And again -

_Laws are made to be broken by law-abiding people, and there is no one more law-abiding and therefore more liable to break rules than me -_

And again -

_He's not exactly lacking of a sense of humor, but not often in the mood to be amused -_

And again -

_He_ _ bites _ _._

Amoretta closed the book and found she was panting.

She had heard it in the words. She had heard it even as she was reading and she knew, she _knew_ and she knew that she could not be mistaken. When she closed her eyes, she saw the name written on the back of her eyelids in a glowing golden hand that she knew she would recognize anywhere, now that she's seen it.

_Violet_ _Valentine_ _Lore_.

Amoretta had put her hand out blindly into the dark and found Violet Lore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is alarming that I continually thought of this as 'the short chapter.' The next chapter is half written, but I am far beyond predicting when I will finish with any given chapter. Sorry for making you guys wait so long. I really appreciate your dedication to this story. I love all of you :3


	13. Eleven: There Are Many Things That I Would Like To Say To You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Relatively graphic suicidal ideation. 
> 
> This 'chapter' had to be broken into two parts. The second half will be posted next week.

 

 

_The wind in your hair is an obscenely decadent pleasure._

_I had a stick pony when I was a girl. I named her Briar Rose. It's funny the sort of amazing adventures that can be had on a stick pony. If Briar Rose were still among the living stick ponies in this world, then I'd enchant her. I think it'd be a brilliant sort of wonderful to be a witch that rode a stick pony rather than a broom. I must sincerely hope that while Briar Rose has gone to whatever hereafter awaits stick ponies, she went the way of all toys that are loved and became real._

_It isn't that I dislike brooms._

_On the contrary, I am very keen on them._

_I never imagined I would be as a girl. I had long ago resolved never to handle any broom even one second longer than was absolutely necessary for my continued survival on this planet._

_But I have acquired a new appreciation for brooms._

_When I'm on a broom with him I feel like anything is possible. I feel like we could take that broom and ride it all the way to the dust and ice and rocks of Saturn's rings. Now that would be a real afternoon excursion._

_When I'm on the broom with him I can taste the wind, not just on my tongue, but with the whole of my skin. I feel like we can outrun all of our troubles. I feel like we can outrun the past and the future. I feel that while we are in motion, time is perfectly still. It feels good, that stillness. It's the moment in between the ticks of a clock. It's the moment in between the beats of our hearts. It's the thrilling silence right before a word is spoken._

_In moments like these we can be at rest together._

_And when we're up alone, I'm ready to chase him. I am ready to chase him endlessly, no matter where he goes, no matter how fast or recklessly he flies. I'm his match. I feel as if we're birds with the same sort of wings, the feathers spaced and shaped the same, and are therefore capable of the same sorts of tricks, all in infinite variation._

_It was strange and dizzy and intoxicating the first time, like falling off a bicycle. It's something you learn with your body, that's true enough. 'Grip the shaft with your thighs.' I'm sure he's been waiting ages to float that one to me. Honestly, he's hilarious. What an adorable dummy. I can't even tell if that line is genuinely cute or just genuinely stupid, even if it is factually accurate and therefore technically correct. I would say he was just making excuses to touch my butt, but he doesn't actually need any. Maybe he just likes excuses._

_I know he likes being right._

_But the seat in his lap is the finest seat I have ever found, so dopey lines aside, I too magnanimous and delicate to complain. Such would be unseemly and rather ungrateful, I think. After all, I have gripped the shaft, although not generally with my thighs. It's a very nice shaft. I can't imagine a more beautiful example of one, although admittedly, I am probably biased._

_But that first time, it was like being thrown up by a falconer. I feel like I was born in that moment, born to fly. I just never realized it until I was in the sky._

_I have a taste for the sky._

_It feels good, the wind in my hair._

_I understand why he loves it._

Amoretta closed the book and pressed her teeth against her lower lip.

It was all so easy to understand. It was all so easy to feel: Violet's first moments on a broom, Grabiner teaching her how to fly, them both chasing one another across the high moors in the summer sunshine. She could hear Violet's wild laughter. She could smell the scent of the heather.

Amoretta had felt Violet's heart soar. She had soared with it.

She had laughed at the naughty jokes.

She had felt the powerful, passionate sweep of Violet's love, not just for Grabiner, but for all things. Violet loved simply being alive. It was inescapable.

Amoretta folded her hands over her chest. Her own heart was beating rapidly. She took a deep breath and then let it out slowly.

It was time for lunch. She had to go down to lunch.

She carefully put the book away among the others that were arranged along the bottom shelf in her little study.

She didn't want to go down to lunch. She wanted to read more. She wanted to feel more. She wanted to understand more about Violet.

But if she didn't go down to lunch, then she would be missed. If someone came to fetch her -

She couldn't be caught reading the commonplace books. If she was caught, then they'd be taken away. She didn't want for them to be taken away.

And so she went down to lunch.

But after lunch she returned to her little study and began reading again.

* * *

 

The next day brought a letter to Revane by way of an unexpected carrier: Ellen Middleton. It was addressed to Raven in graceful, looping script and while Amoretta worried at first that it was a letter from her mother, which might cause the blackbird to lapse into a long spell of brooding, instead, she brightened up like a wide-eyed daylily. Amoretta thought privately that Raven would have been cheered by the comparison, particularly since Amoretta was imagining the sootiest, blackest daylily she possibly could.

Raven was pleased by the letter because it was not from her mother. It was from her grandfather.

"Grandfather says he's going to be visiting an acquaintance in the Court of Figs from Tuesday on! He's invited me to visit him where he's staying. It'll be my first chance of seeing him since he moved to Reverie," she explained, her cheeks rosy and her eyes bright. She was squirming around in a very undignified way, dancing in place. Amoretta thought it made a charming picture. Raven had forgotten herself in this unexpected pleasure.

"It's been a long time, hasn't it?" Amoretta asked with a smile. "Since you've seen him."

"Ages and ages," Raven agreed, pressing the letter to her chest as if it might have been a notification that she had just been elected dark empress of the universe.

"Well then, you'll definitely have to go," Amoretta assured, patting her on the back. "You can't disappoint your grandfather!"

Raven bit her lip, suddenly troubled.

"Well, I can travel fairly well on my own," she said hesitantly. "I am relatively skilled with that kind of magic, but I'm afraid it would take too long to get there on foot. By the time I arrived at the Court of Figs, he'd be ready to go home, even if I left immediately."

It was Amoretta's turn to jump, startled.

"You can't possibly walk from here to New York," Ellen said, her brows clouding. "That's a ridiculous idea."

"I traveled on foot from Boston to Revane," Raven reminded cooly. "And I am aware that it is not a realistic plan to travel on foot to the Court of Figs. Even if I made good time to the Vermont way station it's not particularly feasible. I'd have to wait for my strength to recover before I could use the door, and if I missed the window of time when the door connects to the Court of Corridors I'd have to wait another day on top of that. Even with provisions it wouldn't be easy."

Amoretta put herself between them and attempted to sooth them both.

"Don't be silly, Raven," Amoretta said with a flutter of both her hands. "I wasn't thinking of making you walk to see your grandfather. We still have Gertrude on loan from Professor Finch."

"Ah," Raven said, flushing, "I'm afraid I don't have my driver's license."

"It's all right," she assured. "Even if you did, it takes a special kind of moxie to drive Gertrude. William has his license and even some experience driving Trudy. He can drive you to the Court of Figs and escort you to where your grandpa is staying." She laughed. "As far as I understand it, that's just the sort of errand that apprentices are sent on. I mean, I'll have to ask Hieronymous, but I'm sure he'll let me have my way, and then you can have a little vacation and visit with your grandpa! And don't worry. Your room will be waiting for you when you're ready to come back," she said with a smile.

_I'm sure Professor Grabiner will be happy to have even a brief vacation from Raven, regardless of the cost to himself_ , Ellen thought to herself grumpily.  _We'll have a little peace and quiet in the house again._

This was a somewhat unjust characterization of Raven's stay at the seaside cottage. She was neither particularly loud nor rambunctious. She primarily kept politely to herself, borrowing books from the house library, reading and studying on her own, and sometimes quietly watching the sea from the back terrace. School had not yet resumed on a regular schedule at Revane, although small lessons still happened here and there, so perhaps Ellen imagined that Raven was disrupting their classes. In truth, this hiatus had been prolonged because of Grabiner's lingering concern for Amoretta's health as well as his preoccupation with the events that had transpired in the bookbinder's shop, of which Ellen knew nothing.

But as Amoretta predicted and Ellen supposed, Grabiner was amenable to the suggestion. William was given additional errands to run in the city while he was there and instructed to assist Raven when she so required assistance.

"After all," Grabiner said to his wife behind closed doors. "I am certain that you still feel responsible for her even when she is not our houseguest."

"Well, you're not wrong," Amoretta agreed.

And so Raven was dispatched with William as her chaperone. She packed her bag one warm sunny morning and then departed, never to return again.

Until she did return, one week later, at the close of her grandfather's visit.

But this is not a story about that.

It is a story about something else.

* * *

 

Amoretta read and read. She read after breakfast. She read in the cowshed before lunch, sitting against the table that now housed the beginnings of her miniature Iris Academy and the mechanical train that served it. She read down by the sea. She read sitting beside the bathtub, when she ought to have been bathing.

Ellen could tell that she was consumed by something, and so delicately gave her the distance that she required.

Amoretta read during every spare moment that she was alone, and she endeavored to manufacture aloneness, so that she might read even one moment longer.

Grabiner accommodated her desire for solitude. Now that she had Dinah to attend to her, they were not even required to keep the same sleeping schedule. Gradually, the times of their waking and sleeping drifted apart and Amoretta found herself more alone than ever.

That was all right.

She needed time to read. She needed time to understand.

But even as she wanted it, the aloneness was frightening.

She had very many things to be afraid of, after all.

She had confronted many of them face-to-face that morning in Marguerite Belle's book shop when she had looked into Grabiner's eyes and understood that he saw a stranger.

He had looked at her and seen a monster.

She knew it. She could feel it in the marrow of her bones. There was nothing. There was nothing. She had nothing.

And that was terrifying.

If Grabiner would not suffer her to live, if he would not keep her and love her, then no one possibly could. No one would. She was a flower with a broken stem, forgotten in an overgrown corner of the garden.

She would never be good enough. She could never be good enough. She was too weak. She was too small and passive. She could not work the great magics as she was required. She could not reorder the universe in the way that she wanted to. She was pale and small and fragile. She could not do what was required of her.

That was why he did not want her. Who could want her? It was ridiculous that she had thought that anyone might. She had a broken stem. She had been trod upon. She thought it was likely that she had been born broken.

Worse than that, worse than that, she was not even a flower. She was a weed. She would not be loved. She would not be cared for. She would be weeded, and then she would be thrown away.

She was a wrong thing. She was a thing who could not be loved. She was a broken promise, a profound betrayal. Merely by existing in the way that she existed, she was painful and terrible and wrong.

Who are you? Who are you? Marianne Amoretta Suzerain was just a name. It was just a jumble of letters across a page that meant very little. She was not sure she had any self at all. If someone shined a light on her, would she cast a shadow?

Or would there be nothing at all?

Nothing but photons bouncing endlessly.

She was herself. She was herself, she thought. He didn't want her. She was not simple. She was not easy. She was not lovely. She was a box of rotten secrets.

It was a thing she understood.

When he had looked at her with horror, she had faced her own death.

It was a miserable death, wrapped in pain and anguish and despair.

What she had faced was absolute abandonment.

Even the man who had bartered away his soul for her keeping, even he -

She did not want to think about it. She did not want to think about it.

She thought about it constantly.

At least when she was reading, she did not have to think about it.

She could think of Violet. She could think of warm days in the past that had gone by in laughter and pleasure. She could think of Grabiner awkward, difficult, but happy and content, smiling cocksure, flipping his cloak over his shoulder the same way he did now. She could think of that strangely matched pair, with edges so flush against one another.

It was sweet. It was funny. It was perfect.

She loved the Hieronymous Grabiner she found in the pages of Violet Lore's commonplace books. She loved the Violet Lore who was illuminated by her own text. She truly was the one who eclipsed the speed of light.

Amoretta looked down at her own grimoire as it lay on the ground near her thigh.

A miracle.

A book of miracles.

It was what she needed.

A miracle. She needed a miracle.

She swallowed it all and tried to will it all away.

He loved her. He had told her so. Surely it was true.

But she was frightened.

She was frightened, and one of the things she was most frightened of was him discovering that she was frightened.

If he knew, then she felt that it would all be over.

She tried not to think about it.

She thought about it constantly.

She smiled and pretended that everything was allright. She laughed. She danced. She told jokes. She was an imp. She made playful, idle mischief.

It seemed as if things were perfect.

But they were not.

Amoretta was simply very good at pretending.

* * *

 

There was a quiet lull in the middle of the day and Amoretta put away her reading. Her eyes were sore and bleary for having focused so long and hard. She rubbed at her eyes and then went to get a drink of water and to wash her face.

When she returned to the study, it was not to read.

Amoretta sat down on the floor and pensively stared at the small box on the lowest shelf. She traced aimless lines with her index finger on the familiar rug, as if she could map out a path through her dilemma. Although her own pattern was patternless, the rug had a pattern of flowers, friendly and bright and soothing. Like most of the treasures in her little study, the rug had the figures of flowers on it because Grabiner had chosen it for her, and he knew that she liked flowers. It was the same as the petit point pillow in the small arm chair, or the watercolor illustrations and pinned butterflies that were framed on the wall.

There were also flowers concealed inside the plain cardboard box on the shelf, but these were not a present from her doting husband (who doted  _considerably_ , but liked to imagine that he was aloof, restrained and refined, and  _completely above it all_ ).

No, the flowers in this box were not for her.

They were for him.

This was the box that held the porcelain violets that had originally come from Lord and Lady Something-or-Other, an unkind and downright venomous wedding present.

Amoretta had stowed the offending parcel away almost immediately after having opened it, tucking it away on a low shelf in her study, a place Grabiner was unlikely to ever investigate. There it had sat for weeks, out-of-sight, out-of-mind, gathering dust (it had not actually gathered any dust because Tansy was downright obsessive about dusting, even for a professional housekeeper). There the little box might have sat until doomsday had Amoretta not had two very graphic run-ins with Violet Lore nearly back-to-back.

First it had been Eclipse Starlight and Stardust Miracle, the look-alike grimoires that had baffled her husband and the grimoire binder, and then she had collided with Violet a second time, through the unexpected bounty of her commonplace books.

All of this meant that Amoretta had spent quite a lot of time thinking about Violet in the near term: thinking about her childhood in the old northern town where she'd grown up, her time at school learning magic and making friends (she had no real enemies because she did not tolerate them to exist, or so she claimed), her relationship with Grabiner, who dominated so many of the pages in the notebooks, often as 'H.' or 'Hiero,' sometimes as even more outlandish and bizarre nicknames, but never by his whole name, as if she never had time to spare to write it out. Amoretta was captured by shape of Violet's unusual brain, which was readily apparent from the varied subjects of the commonplace books. She dwelled on what had made Violet laugh, trying to puzzle it out, what had made her cry, whom she had loved, whom she had despised. Amoretta found herself hungry for knowledge, starving even, as if she had stumbled into the lucky accident of a new best friend who was now abruptly distant, and who could only be known through bits and pieces gleaned here and there in snippets of correspondence.

She could understand Violet. She could laugh at her jokes, revel in her triumphs, and delight at her cleverness. She felt Violet's sadness and anguish acutely when she tumbled into them. She liked Violet very, very much. It wouldn't have been an exaggeration to say that Amoretta  _loved_  her, what she had managed to piece together herself of the girl whom they had called the Peerless, the girl who had had the audacity to call  _herself_  the Peerless, the girl who had burned like a star.

'ViVa' she signed all her entries, VIolet VAlentine, but it was also an admonition, a command, even:  _LIVE!_ , she was saying. Live she had, until she had not.

Amoretta had begun to feel the death of Violet very personally and acutely.

_What a loss_ , she thought.  _What an awful, horrendous loss._

Amoretta felt that loss in her bones. There was a gulf of time that separated Amoretta from the past where Violet reigned supreme, a chasm she could not cross, marked by the open mouth of a grave. She could not go to where Violet stood, in the faded twilight of the past, wreathed in old sunlight, the undisputed queen of the times-that-had-been.

The commonplace books, with their funny and sometimes cryptic scribbles and notes, were like a strange drug. The more Amoretta read, the more she wanted to read. The more she discovered, the more she wanted to know, about Nonny, Mack, Foxie, Rudi Redd, Mister Glass, Jools, the Urn Queen, Jack-Jack, the Ash Man, all the strange characters who appeared with regularity in the pages of the books, in anecdote after anecdote, story and quotation and verse, and sometimes even funny doodles in pen and ink.

When she had opened the first book and read the first words, she had been ensnared. From that first moment, she had been following the white rabbit.

She was Psyche, carrying the candle to see her lover's face. She knew that now, even as she carried it, knew she would be caught and punished for her great betrayal, but she could not stop, now that she had begun.

Amoretta wanted to know. She wanted to understand. And she was frightened of having Violet confiscated. She needed to absorb as much as she could, as quickly as she could, if she wanted to understand things.

It was like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle in the dark. It was like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle in the dark without all the pieces. It was like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle with no idea of how it was supposed to turn out.

She just couldn't make out the picture, she couldn't make it out no matter how hard she tried, but she wanted to.

Oh, she wanted to.

So she lit that candle.

Amoretta pulled the box off the shelf and opened it.

The violets slid out of their dense foam packing easily. They were beautiful: a delicate and lifelike porcelain ornament of flowers springing up out of the quiet earth. When she touched the slender, twined flowers, it seemed strange that they were hard and cold. They looked as if they ought to be cool and alive with the dewy blush of life. Now as she looked at them, she was struck with the same sense of wonder that had captured her the first time she had laid her eyes on them. They were a lovely piece of art. In other circumstances they would have made a splendid wedding gift: a beautiful little curio to tuck away in the library and admire from time to time.

Certainly, the violets gave the impression that they had cost a great deal of money. The packaging had been discreet, but luxe. There was still a loose silk ribbon in the box that had been tied around the foam. It was not the sort of thing that arrived by happenstance.

This gift had not been a thoughtless mistake, an accidental faux pas committed by a disinterested party. It had been a gift made with intention.

The person who had bought this gift for the two of them had known Violet Lore. This was a fact that Amoretta could not doubt. There was a mystery here. She could smell it.

But there wasn't much to be done about the violets. They were not particularly communicative on their own.

Cord hadn't known what to tell her when she'd unwrapped them, so it was clear that he would have nothing further to add at this late date. Besides, he had already shared his thoughts about 'the falling star, and the man who'd tried to catch her,' even against his better judgement. Tansy was also a no-go. Amoretta hadn't managed to kindle up much of a friendship with the prickly kobold housekeeper, and she wasn't certain Tansy could be counted on to answer questions or keep secrets, particularly when the master of the house was involved.

Honestly, the simplest person to ask about the violets was Grabiner himself, but Amoretta knew better than to try, at this point. Grabiner had no desire to share that age of his life with her. All that had transpired in the past had transpired in a secret garden, one that was locked and forbidden to her. She could not depend on a twist of fate to put the rusted key into her hands, and thereby allow her to plumb and begin to heal the dark traumas of the past. He kept the key himself, maintained the lock himself, and guarded the gate like a dragon. Violet was Violet and Amoretta was Amoretta and ne'er would the twain meet. When Grabiner did speak of Violet, it was always with difficulty, and usually under duress. It was always brief. It was always jealous. Violet was a treasure he was unwilling to share, even with her.

Besides that, Amoretta knew that the violets were a gift that had been sent with the express intention of hurting Grabiner. She could not doubt that. Someone had sent them vindictively. She had hidden them away when she had discovered them among the strange array of wedding presents, wanting to spare Grabiner the discomfort and pain of receiving them. She could not bring them to him now, with a fresh (or guilty) smile and no explanation. Besides, that was such the opposite of what she wanted to do, it might have been funny, if she had felt like laughing. She didn't want to hurt him, either by letting him feel the barb that had been aimed at him from some unknown assailant, or the barb that she had sharpened herself, by keeping this wicked gift away from him, and out of his knowledge.

But then.

There was another way, wasn't there?

She was a witch, naturally.

It was a thing she forgot, sometimes. She did not have to sit and stare morosely at the violets and wish that they might give up the secrets of their sender.

Magic could solve that dilemma.

After all, she was not a Gretel like Ellen.

And she did not even have to pore over dusty tomes in search of a secret spell that might reveal this hidden information. She had learned a spell to do just what she wanted before last Christmas holiday.

It was simple, really. She wanted to know the thoughts of the person who had sent the violets. She wanted to know what sort of person had sent them, and what they had meant by them. Perhaps the answer would end up being vague, if the violets had been handled too often, and by too many people, as her underthings had been when they'd been tossed around the quad in the spring, but even a vague answer was better than no answer at all. It would be a clear confirmation of her suspicious, if nothing else.

It would have been better, probably, if she had saved the exterior ribbon and wrapping paper, so she could comparatively analyze the results, but she did still have the original box and the interior ribbon, and that was something.

She hoped it would be good enough.

Well, there was nothing left to do but try it.

Fortunately, it was the sort of spell that she excelled at.

Amoretta sat the box down in front of her and concentrated on the violets that she held only in one hand, leaving the other free for the somatic component of her spell as her soft voice threaded out the words that would weave the magic together.

_You, with your body of clay and earth, fired smooth and sleek. You who have been given a soul by being made whole by the hands of a maker, you are a bed of secrets. You are a bed of truth. You are a book that must be read. Your words are writ. Let me be your reader. Speak, and I will listen._

_Spirit Echoes_

There was an ominous rumbling, a roll of thunder in her chest as if a herd of heavy animals were bearing down hard upon her, and it was at that moment that Amoretta realized that the terrible rumbling was in her own skull, vibrating in her sinus cavity, behind her eyes.

The pain was such that she might have vomited right there, with no further provocation, but she was saved from this indignity because the blowback from the spell was so fierce that it felt as if her head had been knocked from her shoulders with a baseball bat.

She lost consciousness almost immediately, and slumped over lifeless on the rug, the porcelain violets tumbling harmlessly out of her hands to lie near her face down body.

* * *

 

 

When she came back to herself, her head was on Grabiner's lap, and he had one hand in her hair, curled protectively against her head. She blinked sleepily, still in a daze. She was under the effects of green magic. She knew enough about what that felt like at this point to recognize it immediately. Her nose felt damp and sniffly. She wiped at it and her hand came away bloody. She stared stupidly at her bloody fingertips, as if she was uncertain what they were or where they had come from.

He swore colorfully and was soon patting himself over. He dug a handkerchief out of his pocket and gave it to her before immediately launching into another spell. More green magic. She could recognize that. She felt it sweep over her, and the bleeding soon dried and then stopped altogether.

"What happened?" she asked in confusion. She didn't really know. She was having difficulty putting events in order and deriving a cause and effect.

"That's what I'd like to know," he said tersely, then sighed. It was a tired sound. "You shouldn't be in any danger now," he assured, dragging his fingertips through her hair, an attempt to soothe her. "You were knocked out by an extreme case of empathetic backlash. I think you ruptured some of the capillaries around your sinuses. You're lucky you didn't shatter your eardrums."

Her head still ached a little, but the pain and confusion were slowly receding. She sat up weakly and looked around herself.

She spotted the offending violets immediately.

They were hard to miss, being as they were currently sealed securely in a containment field, a shining magic circle revolving slowly above and below them, marking the edges of the containment. Inside the field, vaguely menacing black mist seeped from the cracks in the sculpture, as if it were bleeding ink or tar. There were cracks now, and breaks. The violets were broken. They were broken into several pieces, actually. She turned her head to the side slightly, wondering if the curio had broken when she dropped it, but then she saw a mark on the wall, as if it had been gouged there. It was the crater of a locally produced meteorite.

_Oh,_ she thought absently to herself.  _He threw them. He threw them against the wall._

"Where did these come from?" he demanded, jabbing at the broken violets with an impatient and accusatory finger.

"They were a wedding present," she admitted guiltily, shifting slightly in place.

"I don't recall you ever mentioning them," he said dryly and she flushed. "And I've never seen them before," he continued. "I would have remembered seeing them." His lips were a thin line. "Did they come recently?"

It was as if he were slowly pacing a circle around her, watching for her guilt, her tells. It felt as if he were scrutinizing her from all angles, even though he had not yet moved and was still on the ground next to her.

"No," she admitted, swallowing hard. "They were already here when we moved in."

"And why didn't you ever bring them to my attention?" he asked, and she heard his fingers tapping out a rhythm against the floor where it was bare, one after another. He was waiting for her to explain herself, and he was already aware that she could not. He was closing on her now. The circle was shrinking. He was tightening the noose.

She could feel it tightening.

"Well, they didn't seem like a very nice gift," she admitted with a complicated frown. There was no place to go, really. There was no place to retreat.

"So you wanted to spare my feelings?" he asked testily and she was forced to nod. "Who sent them?" he prompted, and the prompt was both sharp and crisp.

Her brows scrunched up and she thought about it. "Um. Lord and Lady Something," she said helplessly. "I wrote it down."

"I know you did," he answered shortly, and she realized that the book that she had used to record all the gifts was now lying on the rug nearby. He had already been at it.

She started and he looked away as if vaguely guilty.

"I was concerned for your safety, so I took the liberty of looking through your book," he said. "I knew you kept a record of the gifts. You told me so yourself."

"Then why were you questioning me?" she asked in confusion.

"Because I wanted to hear what you'd say," he said flatly. Then he frowned at the violets, or perhaps he frowned into empty space.

He was grim.

"Then who sent them?" she asked. "You know, don't you?" Now that he had found out everything anyway there was no use trying to hide what she had been doing or why she had been doing it.

"Marvell," he said shortly. "Nobody but Marvell would have the gall or the nerve."

"Marvell?" she asked, racking her brain for pertinent information. Had Violet ever mentioned a Marvell? She didn't think so.

But then, the commonplace books were filled with nicknames and strange abbreviations and even stranger acronyms. Even if there was a Marvell in the books, he probably was never called Marvell, just as her husband was never called 'Hieronymous,' nor even 'Grabiner.'

"It's none of your concern," he said abruptly, and she winced.

It hurt.

The words hurt.

They probably oughtn't hurt at this point. His reaction was certainly no surprise. This was not a thing he allowed her to have, to know.

But still, it hurt, every time, every wound, fresh and tender. She could never build up the requisite callouses to protect her heart.

And that wasn't all that hurt.

Now that he was certain that she was no longer in danger, Grabiner got to his feet, and as he did, Amoretta saw that it wasn't only her book of gifts that had been plundered. The composition books that had once belonged to Violet Lore and were still filled with her strange, rambling notes even in this age long past her death were on the floor as well, scattered around the place where Grabiner had sat cradling her, as if he had gone through them in a daze while sitting beside her on the floor.

He stood with his back to her, staring out the open door of the study, looking into the dark bedroom. Then he turned to look at her and she knew it was coming.

It could not be avoided. The circle had closed and the noose was in his hands.

And she had no explanation for herself.

And he knew it.

And she knew it.

"What are these?" he asked quietly. He tapped his foot near the stack of composition books.

Amoretta rubbed at her head, as if it still ached, as if she could still feel the terrible ill intent of the violets humming in her brain. She could not. She was simply looking for any reason at all not to answer him.

But of course, she had to answer. He was waiting. He would wait forever to hear her explain herself. He would wait them both into the grave.

"You know, don't you?" she asked quietly. "You already looked."

Grabiner frowned. "Amoretta, I'm sorry I went through your things," he said. "It wasn't my intention to disturb your privacy - "

"I wasn't trying to hide them from you!" It burst out of her. She couldn't hold it back, and even as she said it they both knew that it wasn't strictly true. Even if she had not been hiding the books, she had not shared their discovery with him, fearful that he might confiscate them, fearful that he might take away the Violet she had finally unearthed. "I know they belong to you - "

"They belong to  _her_ ," he cut in abruptly, with a sharpness that made the hair stand up on the back of Amoretta's neck. But then he was running his hand through his hair and shaking his head. "I'm sorry. I am sorry, really," he apologized, and he did seem sincerely sorry, although he also seemed frustrated and upset. "I simply meant to correct you. These aren't my property. They belong to her. Honestly, I have no idea where you got them. I thought - I thought they were lost."

"They were in the box that William brought to me," Amoretta admitted softly. "With the things from your nursery and school room. I'm sorry. I should have told you."

"Yes, you should have." Grabiner's answer was immediate. It was a full stop. It was a shutdown. He was not as sharp as he had been before, but he was still keen, and he was certain. He was definite. It was not a subject open for debate. By not telling him of the commonplace books, she had wounded him.

She could say nothing to that, so instead she looked hard at the floor and blinked back tears.

_I can't cry now. He'll think I'm such a baby. He'll think I'm a selfish imbecile. A goofy little nitwit. Why do I always want to cry at times like this?_  she wondered, biting hard against her lower lip. _He thinks I'm just like everyone else, just a gruesome, morbid tourist interested in a gory story. But this is my life! This is my life!_

_He'll shut the door,_ she thought as she stared at his shoes, unable to look at his face.  _He'll shut the door and lock the door, and I'll be left outside, and he'll never let me in. He'll never let me in there. I have violated the final taboo._

It was not a sin that would be forgiven.

She felt like she was going to be sick.

"You should have told me about the books," he was speaking and he sounded strangely distant, and then she realized why. He sounded as if he were lecturing in front of a bored freshman class, more remote than he had ever been when he was actually teaching. He was dry and disconnected: he had become absent, a witness, but not a participant. "They have considerable personal value to me. It was my own mistake that put them in your care and I admit that. I should have checked the contents of the boxes more closely."

It felt like a moment a hundred years in the past, when he had confronted her in the accounting room and demanded that she hand over a letter that she had had rights to hold.

_It's none of your concern_ , he had said. But it was. It was. It was her business. It was  _terrifyingly_  her business.

"It wasn't your fault," Amoretta disagreed, feeling that she ought to disagree, that she  _had_  to disagree. She shut her eyes tightly so that the tears were forced out at the corners. His disinterested voice was the worst part of it. If only he would be angry. If only he would be angry at her -

"I'm speaking," he cut in brutally, as if she might have spoken out of turn in class and faced demerits or expulsion as a consequence.

"I know you are!" she shouted back at him, and her stomach was roiling as if it were filled with snakes or worms.

"Well then, be quiet!" he cried, raising his voice at last. His eyes had lost their glazed, distant look. He was angry because she was yelling and she wouldn't listen.

"I won't!" she cried, getting unsteadily to her feet. "I won't be quiet. I'm not the way you think I am! I'm not just some morbid bystander. I'm not looking for cheap thrills. I'm involved in all of this. You're keeping things back. Things about her, things about me.  _I know_  you're keeping things back. I don't know why you're doing it, but you are. And I'm not some kind of horrible monster. I never expected that from you, not when you said - You  _promised_  me. You promised me that no matter what, I'm a person, I'm a person! But then,  _then_ , you were so disgusted you couldn't even  _look_  at me. I have a right to know what you're thinking! I have a right to know about her, and about me! I have  _feelings_. I get scared like everybody else, and right now I'm absolutely  _terrified. I have been for weeks, maybe always_. I have a right to know about things!"

"I never said you didn't!" he growled in response.

"You didn't have to say it! I could feel it! I could feel it every day, always, always. I could feel it!" she stormed back. She had worked herself up into a fine hysteria. "That's what you mean when you say, 'it's none of your concern.' I'm not allowed to know. You don't want to talk to me. You never want to talk to me."

Now he was incensed.

"You're getting off topic. Purposefully, I am tempted to believe. None of this would have happened if you had just come to me when you unwrapped that box - " he said, throwing out his arm.

" _How could I?"_ she howled, and it was an animal cry, a rough, scratchy scream that forced her body forward, as if she were buckling under the weight of her despair and anguish, as all the fear and terror and loneliness vomited out of her.

And then she lost the war with her own body, and vomited again, this time spilling the contents of her stomach all over the rug.

She was completely disgusted with herself. She looked down at the vomit, and then down at her own self, and then she looked up at Grabiner, sad and desperate for any kind of comfort, any quarter, anything at all. She wanted him to love her, to console her, to hold her, to give her safety, to give her care.

But he was staring at her angry and empty-eyed, and she knew that he had nothing at all to give.

So she ran.

She ran to get away from him, because she felt that he didn't want her, and that he would never want her again, and that was the worst feeling of all.

She just wanted to be away, to be away from everything. She was crumbling without support - not enough had been done to shore her up and now it was too late. She would soon be nothing but soot and ash. And he could not give her any support. One look told her all of that. He had nothing for her. He couldn't have given her anything if he had wanted to.

He was all empty.

It was all empty.

The least she could do for the both of them was to take herself away, so he didn't have to watch as she disintegrated completely, moment by moment, atom by atom.

"Amoretta - " she heard him call out as she passed by him, heard the pain and anger and despair in his voice. He might have moved to try and stop her, half-hearted, unsure.

"No," was what she said, and it was the end of all things.

No.

She ran, and he could not stop her.

And then she was gone.

* * *

 

Grabiner only stared after she had gone, his eyes bulging and lifeless, as if he had been struck dead by what had happened. He stared at the rug, at the vomit, at the broken violets in their containment field, at the smutch on the wall where he had thrown the violets upon first coming into the room. All of the angles of the room seemed wrong, as if was being filmed by a camera laid on its side. It was all hideous and technicolor and straining.

Grabiner stared at nothing at all, simply stood, unmoving, because he understood that the end of all things had come. The set was being struck. There would be nothing else. The lights would go down and there would be nothing but silence.

_I ought to just go step into traffic,_  he thought idly, with a vacant sort of desire for self-destruction.  _That would solve all of these problems. I ought to step into traffic. I deserve to step into traffic. To have hurt her like that -_

_It would happen in a moment, a fraction of a second. It would be an inversion: of sense, of sanity, bodily. The impact wouldn't be felt at first. All that force would ripple through my body in an instant that would feel like forever. There would be pressure, powerful pressure, grinding pressure, and my ribs would break one by one. The sharp end of a broken bone would go through my liver. My spine would crack, one, twice, three times. My vision would fade out into blackness. That's what I would feel, because I wouldn't be able to feel the pain at first. When I was on the ground and my blood was seeping into the hot pavement, that's when I'd start to feel it: the dull, wrenching throb of pierced and pulped organs. The limbs at unnatural angles. And the adrenalin would hit at last, delayed, pointless, desperate, and my heart would race and race, running off to nowhere, pumping my blood hard, spilling it out on the ground._

_It would be easy. It would be easy to do. All I've got to do is find a truck._

Although infrequent, there were timber trucks on the roads around the cottage, semis piled up with raw trunks with the bark half roughed off. They were often still bleeding sap.

That would do well. A timber truck was just the thing.

It would feel good. It would feel good to provide some kind of atonement, even if it was pitifully wanting.

He was always wanting. He was always lacking, but he thought - he supposed - he imagined - that he could at least do away with himself properly.

_There ought to be some meager justice in this world after all,_ he thought to himself.

He was not really certain what he had done, besides question her a bit roughly, but he had seen the pain and anguish that wracked her small body. She had identified him as the source of her torment. He could not doubt it. It would have never even occurred to him to try. He had done something terrible to her. He was certain. Now all he had left to do was consult a list of his considerable failings.

_Everything I do is wrong,_ he thought. _Everything I have done is wrong. She would be better off if I were dead._

But then, he knew that was not true, because if he were dead, then she would soon follow. They were chained to one another. Their fates were chained. If he went down, he would take her down with him.

As he stood there, staring at the ground, he wondered if it might not be better if it did end, since they both had the luxury of a guaranteed blessed resurrection. But he was resigned to the fact that there was really no point in that. He was certain to wreck the unseen future just as handily as he had the present and the fractured past.

When he had looked at her - disheveled, panting, screaming - he had tasted her despair. He had known it as his own.

_She did nothing to deserve this,_ he thought, staring hard at nothing.  _She did nothing to deserve me. I tried. I tried. I tried my best to warn her._

_She was made for better things than this._

On a little table in the corner, a clock was ticking patiently away. He couldn't understand the use of such a thing.

Why bother to count time at all? There was nothing left under heaven. He had broken it all with his own hands.

It was only moments after Amoretta's stormy departure that another small individual came to investigate the scene. It was Dinah. She crossed the little room to examine the mess on the rug, and after a cursory sniff she made a face that very clearly communicated her feelings with the disdainful huff that only a cat can make.

She went to sit at Grabiner's feet, curling her tail around her legs.

_The Mister is upset,_  she observed.

He closed his eyes briefly before answering her.

"Yes, I am," he said. "But so is your mistress. You ought to go to her. Stop wasting your time on me. She's the one who's hurting,  _because of what I have done. The whole of this is my fault_."

_Dinah is here because this is where Dinah should be,_  the little cat insisted patiently.  _The Mistress is all right. Dinah knows. If Dinah thinks she should go, she will go. Dinah knows best about Dinah._

He brushed his hand across his forehead and then ran his fingers through his hair, digging hard against his skull.

"Fuck all. You're as stubborn as she is," he said tiredly. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised at that."

_It is a necessary trait,_ the small cat agreed agreeably, then she cocked her head.  _Why does the Mister despair? Dinah does not understand. Dinah has been hunting downstairs._

Their altercation had woken the sleeping cat, apparently _._ He was certain by now the whole house knew of it _._ Itwas a pale blessing that his apprentice and  _la belle dame sans merci_  were not currently about the house _._ Circumstances played in Amoretta's favor as they always did. Or did they? Was this in her favor? It was hard to imagine that it might be.

Unless it was her fortune inexorably turning to rid itself of him. He was the black cat that she always wanted close, the ladder she was always walking under. Now, perhaps that had finally changed.

He thought of her small face, pinched and tired with fear and loneliness. He thought of her sick, angry tears. He had done that to her. He had hurt her so badly that she had been physically sick from the strain and anguish. She was the one he loved the best. She was the one he wanted to protect from all the ills of the world. He had broken all the ribs of her spirit. He had bruised and stepped on the delicate, venous thing he had wanted to keep safe, cupped in his hands.

"I despair because I've ruined everything," he answered flatly. "I began by ruining it all, even in those first beautiful, unexpected moments, because I know nothing but how to break what is precious and good. I have been  _unerring_  in my ruination." He snorted. "Frankly, I ought to win some sort of award for the amount of pure emotional trauma I produce as a byproduct of my existence." He frowned and his mouth was hard. "I ruined my life with her the same way I ruin all the things I touch. I have torn her open. I have cut her brutally,  _remorselessly_ , as surely as if I drew a knife and slit open her belly. I am meant to protect her, and I have done nothing of the sort. I have protected  _myself_ , and at her expense.  _I_  am her worst enemy.  _Me_. She isn't wrong. She isn't wrong about any of it. I have thought of her as a monster. There is no one in the world who has hurt her more than I have." He snorted again as he closed his eyes again and tilted his head back, as if he could somehow drain the guilt and anguish away until it pooled, dark and potent at the base of his spine. "There is no one who could."

Dinah flipped her tail once.  _Dinah detects some . . . exaggeration,_  she said diplomatically.  _The Mister is the one whom the Mistress loves best. He is never her enemy. If the Mister hurt the Mistress, then apologize. Dinah thinks it is simple._

"Nothing is simple!" he shouted at the little cat so that she jumped, and her fur bristled up, but she held her ground and kept sitting perfectly still, with only the tip of her tail twitching from time to time. He pinched the bridge of his nose hard and then shook his head. "I'm sorry, Dinah. You've done nothing. I appreciate that you want to help, but you must understand, little one, that it isn't that simple. There is no apology great enough in the world to offer. I cannot say anything that means anything. I have only emptiness and false comfort. I could tell her that it will be all right, but I am aware that it simply isn't true. It will not be all right. It will never be all right again. Perhaps it was never all right to begin with." He shook his head and made a sharp sound that might have been a derisive laugh. "Besides," he said, "I sincerely doubt she wants to hear an apology from me. I doubt she wants to hear anything from me. She has finally realized what should have been obvious from the beginning: I am a disgusting, cowardly wretch."

_The Mister doesn't know until he tries,_  Dinah suggested.

"And what am I to say?" he demanded of the little cat. "The moment I open my mouth I'll do nothing but make it worse. I have done something terrible to her, not simply once, but over and over again, as if I could never tire of the novelty of maiming her and then watching her bleed. She is absolutely right. I have not wanted to share this with her. Now it seems clear that I will never be able to. I have no way to apologize for this, and even if I did, _I do not deserve to be forgiven_. It would be shameful to even ask, to ask forgiveness of her, when I have already taken so much,  _so much_." He was very grim as he finished, "And I am ever hungry to take more, more,  _more_ , no matter how much it hurts her."

_Sorry,_ Dinah said simply.  _The Mister says 'sorry.'_

"It cannot be 'sorry', Dinah. It isn't enough," he said angrily. "It could never be enough. What a cheap word it is: 'sorry.' As if it has any meaning. As if it could be at all relevant, when all I've done for months is fight desperately to hide the truth from her. I have lived in perpetual terror that she would uncover the past and see me as the kind of monster the whole of the world thinks I am. And I have no way of apologizing for constantly seeing the shape of Violet when I look at her, no way to make that betrayal anything less than it is. She offers me nothing but sincerity and honesty: her sweet, genuine heart. The shameful truth is that I could do no better than this - no better than  _misery_   _and_   _betrayal_  - even after I swore my all to her. How could I ever apologize for all the fear I've been carrying around, bundled on my back,  _fear of her very nature,_  fear of the shadows she throws when the light shines behind her, fear of the cost that must have been paid to bring about her birth? She has never rejected me. Never, not once, despite all that is ugly about me, all that is truly vile, but the first opportunity I got, I threw her down to the ground and drew back in self-righteous disgust. It cannot be undone. It should not be undone. As if we could just sweep all the unpleasantness under the rug, or into the corners of the room. As if I could demand that she just smile and nod, and accept me with open arms and a broken heart, so that we could carry on just as we had before, as if nothing had happened. That's absurd. It's so absurd it turns my stomach. There is nothing, Dinah. There is nothing to be done. I have wrecked it. I have wrecked it all."

_Dinah thinks it is a good place to start,_  Dinah said patiently. ' _Sorry_.'

"Dinah, please leave me alone," he said tiredly. "You can't understand and I don't expect you to, but honestly, I would rather be alone right now."

_No_ , the cat said flatly, and the very tip of her tail twitched mightily, as if she were in the midst of a spasm.  _Dinah stays. If the Mister wants silence, then Dinah abides, but she will not leave._

"So be it," Grabiner said bitterly, and then he turned on his heel and stalked out of the little study.

* * *

 

Amoretta ran without much direction, nearly taking a tumble down the stairs as she went down them two at a time. She had no destination in mind, she simply wanted to be away from Grabiner. She could not stay in the house. Every inch of the place was thick with the feeling of him, with the tactile memories of their lives all tangled up together. She went out the front door and for a moment paused among the nodding flowers of the chimerical garden and stared at the blue door that led to the outside world.

She could go.

She could really go and not come back.

If she closed this door, there would be other doors that were open.

It was a thing she could do.

But to be fair, to be honest, to be true -

She did not want to do that thing.

She did not want to leave him, even now, even after everything, even in the thick, tarry midst of it all.

She wanted nothing else apart from what she already had, what had been, but what could be perhaps no longer.

So she did not go out the little blue door, into the wide, unknown world outside the safety of Revane.

But neither could she stay in the warm, lovely little garden. He had given it to her. He had dreamed it into being, sung it out of the nothingness, just for her. It was a true sign of the way he loved her: awkwardly and with difficulty, but patiently and sincerely, and with an infinite amount of care. She could see that in every leaf and flower and bud. Sitting among the flowers might have assuaged her loss a little. It might have calmed her heart. But she did not want her heart to be calmed. She did not want to be comforted. She did not want to let go of her pain and her anger. She did not want to return silently to the way things had been before, swallowing down bitter pill after bitter pill. She had run out of the house shoeless and godless, and now she looked past the neatly cobbled garden and into the raw beyond. She stripped the stockings off her socked feet and left them there on the cobblestones and went away barefoot and wounded.

She made for the narrow set of stairs that led down the cliffs to the sea shore, and all the while the terrible circle on her body was throbbing horribly. She pulled the collar of her blouse open a little so she could see the mark as it ranged across her collarbone. The seal still held. She was safe.

But it hurt.

The pain beat in time with her heart, with her blood. It was enough to make her sick again.

She stumbled on the narrow stairs and might have fallen and hurt herself badly, but she managed to catch onto the railing after she skidded down two steps. She came away with a bad scrape up one of her legs, but was otherwise unharmed.

Well, she wasn't physically hurt, at any rate.

The shore was very rocky, but there were stretches of pebbly sand here and there. She planted herself morosely on a stone and looked down at the blood that was beginning to bead on her leg.

Her shoulder hurt awfully.

She could find nothing good in the world, nothing that she was allowed to have. She felt like weeping.

But the pain was really terrible. She needed to see to it. She knew she needed to see to it.

But she didn't think she could manage a spell of the level she required, not in her current mental state.

She shuffled slowly around the beach until she found a stick and then went over to where the sand was soft and wet and began slowly drawing out a material circle, dragging the stick through the soft sand. It was not something that required a great deal of her mental attention, and so she let her mind drift away into nothingness as she stared at the pattern of wet footprints she was leaving behind herself as she laid out the circle. She reached into her pocket and fished out a vial of dust - old blood and sodalite powder - and scattered it over the circle absently. It was yet another thing she had pilfered from Grabiner's desk, something palmed in an easier moment, at an easier time.

At last it was done and she sank down in the middle of it, firing it off with a verbal command.

The healing magic surged up into her and she closed her eyes in relief as the pain began to ebb. It was a moderately high level spell, and the combined effects of being the caster as well as the target soon caught up with her.

She was exhausted.

She was tired of everything, so she just lowered herself slowly onto the sand and promptly went to sleep.

She woke up to find a warm weight on her chest and Dinah peering thoughtfully into her face. She trilled as she confirmed that Amoretta had woken up and hopped off into the sand.

_The best cat Dinah kept all the scary things away,_ she said, by way of a status report.

"Thank you," Amoretta said, rubbing at her face. She was a little sandy from her unexpected siesta, but was otherwise fine. "What time is it?" she wondered aloud.

_Dinah can perform the spell and determine the time,_  the cat said politely,  _But perhaps it would be faster if the Mistress just looked at her watch._

"Oh," Amoretta said absently. "You're right."

She checked her watch. Some time had passed, but not an inordinate amount. She had slept for around forty-five minutes. She felt a little better. Her shoulder was no longer hurting.

That was one thing at least: she was no longer in terrible pain. It somehow seemed like a small victory.

Because she still faced a terrible dilemma.

She did not think she could go home.

She was no longer certain she had a home at all.

It wasn't as if she thought that Grabiner wouldn't have her if she went back to him meek and mild and ready to fall back into safe, measured step. She thought that he probably would. He was very responsible and she would always be his responsibility, no matter what they thought about one another.

But she didn't think that was a thing she ought to do. She was not sure it was a thing that she  _could_  do. Things could not keep going on as they had. There could be no pretending. She had seen the wire and strings and paper mache that made up their fractured relationship. She had been into the basement. She had opened the forbidden door. She had blood on her shoes.

She could not unsee what she had seen. She could not unknow what she now knew.

And she did not want to.

She did not want to go back into blissful, innocent ignorance.

It was not a part she wanted to play.

She was herself: her own, bruised, bloodied, scarred self. She was proud of that self, the one who careened from one trouble to the next, the one who was always making mistakes. She would not give that part of herself away. She would not pack a part of herself away in a sealed box just because that part was inconvenient.

She was a troublesome, needy busybody with sticky fingers. She was clingy. She was nosy. She had a temper. She had no real concept of her own limits.

She was not ideal. She was not perfect. She could not be. She did not want to be.

She could not continue to be the girl she had been: the sweet, thoughtful, ever-patient girl, the girl with no burrs or rough edges who always had a guaranteed place by his side.

If she was going to continue to be with him, then she was going to have to be the raw, unvarnished self she was now, the self who needed honesty, the self who had a limited reservoir of patience. Her patience was deep, but it was not infinite. Her temper was sweet, but she was still hurt by unkind words. She was generous with herself and respectful of his privacy, but that did not mean that she could live on nothing but air and sunlight.

Perhaps he did not know this because she simply had not told him.

She felt ill and tired. It was all terribly complicated. She looked down at Dinah.

"How is he?" she asked.

The little cat took a moment to respond.

_Stupid_ , she said.  _Stubborn_.  _Miserable_.

"Yeah," Amoretta said with a sigh, "Sounds like him."

She looked up at the feathery white clouds against the azure sky.

Everything was horrible and awful. Now that she had a little bit of distance from it, she could see just how bad it truly was. But that also meant she was beginning to see a way through it. She was beginning to understand what was required.

There was a way to go home.

There was a way to go home without giving up herself.

But she would have to get to her feet herself. Grabiner could not help her. He could not even get to his own feet in this situation. She could see that now. In a way, it seemed terribly unfair that it all fell on her to do what had to be done. It was going to be hard. It was going to be worse than hard. It was going to be excruciating. It was going to be messy and perhaps even thankless. She was already tired and hurt, the tears having dried on her face in salty streaks.

She was so injured, and yet she was going to have to be the one that did the heavy pulling. He could not do it. He had no way to do it. It was not part of who he was, not numbered among his gifts. He could recognize what to do once she started, she thought. He would respond to her if she prompted him. But she was going to have to be the one who understood it all, who took it apart and put it back together.

If she did not try to do this, then she knew they would never go forward, not really. If she left him to his own devices, then this bad break would heal on its own as it might, but it would heal badly and forever-after be fragile, and prone to future fractures. They would break again and again, until at last they tired of trying to put themselves back together and withdrew into themselves totally.

It was not a future she was willing to accept.

And so it did not matter if it was at all fair. It wasn't about fairness. It was about necessity.

She would do it.

There was no other way out of this.

When one thing ended, another began. She would begin it. Beginning things was part of her own personal magic.

She would take it all the way down into the dirt, and then she would help it begin.

One foot in front of the other. It was the only way to do it.

And so she got to her feet and shook the sand out of her skirts.

And Dinah led the way back up to the house, her little tail in the air like a flag.


	14. Twelve: She Still Believes in Miracles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Explicit discussion of attempted suicide.

Amoretta came through the door quietly, padding on silent feet.

Grabiner sat with his back to the door, slumped over and face down on his desk, as if he had given up on the world. She was a little surprised to see that there was no stoppered bottle on the desk, as there had been before during tumultuous moments.

_I suppose he's past it at this point,_  she thought to herself.

As she approached Grabiner, Dinah silently wove in and out around her legs once, then departed through the partially open door, apparently satisfied that the situation was now resolved enough for her to begin carrying out her own regular duties.

Amoretta's smile flickered after Dinah as she left, then she turned her attentions back to Grabiner. He had not stirred, as if he were stone dead.

She slipped up behind him and gently laid her hand on his shoulder.

He started as if he had been shot, sitting bolt upright and whirling in his chair to stare at her, mad-eyed and terrified. His sudden lurch upset a precarious stack of books and they went crashing down on the floor.

Amoretta winced slightly at the noise, so loud and terrible in this silent sanctuary.

"I'm sorry," she said slowly. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

"You're here," he answered equally slowly, staring hard at her, uncomprehending. "Why are you here?" he wondered in confusion.

"I'm here to talk to you," Amoretta explained patiently.

"Why would you want to do that?" Grabiner asked in continued confusion.

"Because I love you," Amoretta said simply.

"You shouldn't," he answered immediately and this brought a tired smile to Amoretta's face because it was so familiar.

"Yes, we've been over this before," she reminded him. "You ought to remember that I don't care what you think with regards to this particular subject because your opinion is stupid." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Hieronymous, I'm here to try and understand what happened, what's been happening. I know it seems awful. I know it's complicated. I know we're both upset and confused, but I think that if we work together, we can understand it. I'm going to try and help understand it for you, but it isn't something I can do completely on my own. I need you to listen. Will you listen?" she asked softly.

"I - " Grabiner began what was certain to be a meandering detour of self-loathing and personal disgust, but then cut himself off. He balled his hands so tightly that the knuckles on both his hands went white and his nails bit into his palms. And then he answered her.

"Yes," he said. "I'll listen."

Amoretta was relieved.

Well, there was really nothing else. This was where the rubber met the road. She would do it. It was terrifying. It was overwhelming. But she would do it.

"It's funny," she said, brushing her hands over her skirts as she settled down on the floor near his desk. "It was really funny when I started thinking about it, but I think maybe the biggest problem we have is that we haven't been talking to one another about the things that have been bothering us. I know it seems silly, like something that easy couldn't be the cause of all the hurt and fear and sorrow we've both been experiencing, but honestly, I think that's it."

" - Amoretta," he tried to break in tiredly, but she held up her hand to forestall him.

"Just listen for a while," she suggested. "I know you've got a big long list of reasons you're sure all of this is your fault, because I think it's comfortable for you if things are your fault. You know how to feel about them. They aren't really scary because you've resigned yourself to being unhappy. You like for things to be your fault. You expect them to be. That's something I understand now. It's your baseline. If something bad has happened, you assume that it's because of you."

Grabiner frowned, but was silent. He couldn't really contradict her. She hadn't put it quite the way he thought about it himself, but she was right. He could recognize that about himself. He expected for things to be his fault. He was comfortable when things were terrible and he could blame himself for their terribleness.

"And then me," she said, "You have a hard time thinking anything is my fault. But that's crazy. It's not like I'm perfect and never make mistakes." She raised an eyebrow, "And you  _know_  that. But it's hard for you to accept that some problems that we have might be my fault. I don't always choose the right thing to do. I don't always do the right thing, or the best thing. I make mistakes, and I know those mistakes hurt you."

He opened his mouth again and again she held up her hand.

"You're not allowed to disagree with that," she said firmly. "I know you've got an incredible repertoire of non-magical magic that you use to square that in your head: that I am wonderful and amazing and never do anything wrong and that absolutely everything is your fault. But I also know you're sensible and will listen to reason." Then she smiled a little. "But anyway, I'm not very interested in talking about whose fault any of this is. I don't care, honestly. I don't really think it's useful information. What I want to talk about is how I felt, and how you felt, and why we did all the things we did. If we can understand all that, then we'll have understood all the parts that matter, and I don't think either of us will be upset anymore." She paused. "It's sort of like doing a proof."

"What?" he asked in confusion, totally flat footed.

"A proof," she repeated again patiently. "You know, like a derivation. We're going to lay down axioms about our individual feelings until we get to a theorem."

"Are you serious?" he asked, clearly dazed and certainly incredulous.

"I'm absolutely serious," she said deliberately, and Grabiner could no doubt it. She certainly seemed to be serious about this completely ludicrous idea.

"You're absolutely bonkers," he said and sighed, sounding exhausted. He leaned back in his old desk chair and it made a tortured sound, like bones cracking. "But I'll be frank: this seems exactly like something you'd come up with, so I can't say I'm surprised."

"It's going to work," she assured with a smile. "I may not be ready to prove my fundamental theorems of emotional calculus just yet, but I can go this far right now. So I'll start. I'm going to lay out axioms. I'll try to go in order, but I may have to rearrange them as I go, because I bet we'll end up proving lots of little theorems along the way. If you think you've got an axiom, you can feel free to make it, and I am also free to dispute it. If I make an axiom about you that you disagree with, you can also dispute it, and we'll have to come to an agreement about it. I can't use any axiom that I can't defend. I can't use any axiom that you won't accept."

"Amoretta, this won't work," Grabiner said with a frown. "I understand what you're trying to do, but you can't make a proof based on emotions. They have no clear meanings. You could simply say: 'A is true because I love you.' While that may be very sweet, it isn't useful. It certainly isn't useful in understanding all the awful things I've done to you. And there. I'll say it. I forbid any axiom that depends on love as its causality."

Amoretta didn't even blink. "Naturally," she agreed with a brief smile. "I'm not planning to make a proof based on emotions. How on earth would that work? This is a logical proof, Hieronymous. I'm going to use logic. You can use logic to talk about emotions and mental states. You can use logic to talk about causality. In fact, if it makes you feel better, I won't use the word 'love' at all, until you allow it. We'll consider it a forbidden word. I want you to believe in what we're doing. I'll agree to your conditions."

Grabiner frowned briefly, then sighed. "Very well," he said. "Then begin."

"So, I'll lay out some axioms for myself at first, and then I'll try to arrange them properly," she said. "I'm going to say a lot of things that are true for me. If you don't understand something that I've said, or you just want more information or clarification, then just raise one of your fingers and I'll stop." She bit her lip for a moment, then steeled her courage and began. "I'm not jealous of Violet. I've been really interested in her from the moment I first heard about her. I want to know about her because she's important to you. I want to understand about all the parts of your life not because I want to hear about scandal, but because I want to understand you better. I want to be able to share that part of your life with you. I didn't know very much for a long time because I refused to let anyone tell me." She looked at the ground as her cheeks colored deeply pink. "I realize now that I had a sort of stupid attitude about everything. The headmistress tried to tell me. Ellen told me I should try and find out for myself because I had a right to know, since you were my husband, but I never listened. I never even read your entry in the Which Witch. I realize now that I went out of my way to avoid all that information because I really, really wanted you to tell me about it yourself."

Her eyes were still on the floor, so she couldn't see that he'd raised his whole hand.

"I understand that what I wanted was a bit selfish. It wasn't a terrible sort of selfish, but it was selfish. I wanted you to trust me and tell me whether or not you were ready. I guess I wanted us to have a tearful confession, like in a storybook. I did my best to hold on and to be patient and wait for you to be ready, but in the end, I totally failed. I couldn't be as patient as I wanted to be," she smiled and it was bittersweet.

At last Grabiner broke in, unable to wait any longer.

"Excuse me," he said, and she looked up, her cheeks still flushed. "Are you honestly telling me that you don't have any idea what happened? How is that even possible?"

Amoretta pressed her lower teeth against her lip. "Well," she said. "I didn't. I didn't know for a long time. You remember the day of my bad accident? When we had the play duel, and then the fight - well, Cord told me a little about it then. Just some things he had read in newspapers. That was the first time I sort of understood about things. A little, I mean. I wouldn't let anybody tell me much of anything before that. I thought I was being conscientious, but the truth was, I knew so very little that I was always blundering into your sore spots inadvertently. So I learned a little in hopes I could be kinder to you." She paused. "It's a bit frightening, you know? Being your wife. Oh, not because I'm afraid of you or anything. I'm not. I never could be, not really. But it's a big responsibility, bigger than I realized when I married you."

"Do you regret it?" he asked quietly. "Marrying me."

"No," she answered immediately, rolling her eyes. "And this seems like a great time for a proof. Here goes. You asked me that question because you wanted an answer. Based on your experience with me, you knew exactly how I was going to answer it. Therefore, you asked me that question just to hear me tell you that I don't regret marrying you. That's because it's what you really want to hear. You want me to tell you that I want to be with you."

"You shouldn't want to be with me - " he began.

"Hold up," she said. "That one goes a little further. You want me to tell you that I want to be with you, but at the same time, you have created a personal truth for yourself: Amoretta being with me is bad for her. This truth is something you seem to honestly believe, at least part of the time. I don't think you believe it all of the time. Maybe you did at first, but you don't now. Sometimes you forget it exists at all, that personal truth. But then you remember and feel guilty about it and sort of retrench. Mostly you seem to believe it when it's convenient for hating on yourself. If you believe in that personal truth and you accept that you want to hear me say that I want to be with you, then that creates this situation: you want to hear me say I want to be with you, while at the same time you think you're a terrible person for wanting to hear that. You have preconditions in your mind that create this situation. It's a way of reaffirming what you already believe, a sort of having your cake and eating it too. You get to hear me say I want to be with you. That's comforting. You get direct evidence that you're a bad person. That's also comforting, to you. And I don't really have any ability to disprove it either, since it's a personal truth and not an objective one based on reality. The only person who can disprove it is you."

He was silent for a moment, then said, "Well, you're certainly not pulling any punches this time, are you?"

"I'm not," she agreed. "I couldn't do this if I wasn't boxing with all my weight. This is pretty scary, you know. This is one of the scariest things I've ever done. But I can do it. This is something that only I can do. It's my own special magic." She nodded firmly, as if reassuring herself, then restated her axioms. "You don't like yourself. At least part of the time, you think that me being with you is bad for me. Do you object to either of these statements?"

Grabiner frowned briefly, then shook his head. "No. I don't object to those. I am not keen on admitting it to you, but they're both true." He made a brief wave of his fingers. "But I want you to restate some of your axioms about your knowledge of the past more clearly. I'm still trying to understand it. You were avoiding information about my past? To what purpose?"

Amoretta frowned. "I get that my motivations were pretty stupid," she said.

Grabiner waved her on. "It's not that I think they're stupid," he said. "But weren't you curious? I imagined you were dying of curiosity and gobbling up every little rumor and illicit tidbit you could discover, through fair means or foul. That is how most of my students are and have always been."

Amoretta crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him coolly. "Then you make some axioms about that based on what you know about me and see how far you get," she suggested.

Grabiner frowned briefly and waved her off. "Very well," he said, then closed his eyes, apparently thinking things over. Hardly any time at all passed before he opened his eyes and spoke in consternation. "It doesn't work," he said. "Of course you were curious, but you're stupidly conscientious, and you think about others far more than you think about yourself. Unless blind accident put the truth into your hands in a way you had no way of avoiding, it was inevitable that you would refuse it. You are passionately devoted to what you perceive as right and wrong. You never violate your principles, even if that puts your life into immediate danger. You would never gossip about me, not about something that you thought was cruel or harmful. Why didn't I see that before?" he asked, his eyes narrowing as he stared at his hands. "It was excruciatingly obvious once I bothered to think about it. I just assumed - well, I assumed that you already knew about it, about all of it. It is such common knowledge, after all. You could have just read old newspapers, or asked practically anyone at the school. But you didn't do that. You would never have done that. When you did finally ask someone to tell you about it, it was because you decided that knowing nothing was no longer conscientious." He laughed once, and it was not a hard sound, but a soft, private one. "That's so like you."

Amoretta smiled briefly, and it was sweet and a little sad. "Since I didn't know, it really never occurred to me that you might think I did, so I just kept waiting for you to talk to me."

"I'm sorry, Amoretta - " Grabiner began but she shook her head.

"It's not time for that," she said. "We're not talking about fault or saying sorry. We're trying to understand things. I hadn't finished what I was saying. I just kept waiting for you to talk to me, to tell me about Violet, to tell me about everything. But I really didn't ask, did I? I really didn't tell you how I was feeling. I didn't tell you about my worries and fears. I just sat there waiting, as if you could psychically detect what I was worried about. Sure, I told you I was ready to listen when you were ready to talk, but I never told you how much I wanted to know about things, how much I wanted to hear it from you. I just kind of stewed about it. I was waiting for you to be ready. Then Ellen told me that maybe you'd never be ready. And you know what? I decided that was okay. If you were never ready to tell me, then that was going to be okay. But it wasn't really. I couldn't be honest with myself. I thought 'this is how I should be. I should be able to wait until he's ready to tell me, and if I don't, then I'm not good enough. I'm not a good enough person to be with him.' But that was just too hard. I had set up an impossible goal for myself. I couldn't pass it. I would fail it eventually. And that's just what happened. I failed it. And then I had to really wonder if I was good enough to be with you. I couldn't be the person I wanted to be. I could only be myself. So here are some more of my axioms: I never really talked to you about my fears and worries about the past. I didn't talk to you about them because I had decided that not talking was virtuous. I was being virtuous by letting you decide to talk in your own time. I was hyperfocused on proving to myself that I was good enough to be your partner, so that's why I was trying so hard to be virtuous. I was always afraid I wasn't good enough. I still am, even now."

"Of course you're good enough," Grabiner said, scoffing.

Amoretta laughed quietly. "Well, thanks for that, anyway." Then she grew serious again. "All right. I'm going to try and understand some things from your perspective, so correct me when I'm wrong, all right?"

"All right," he said slowly, his heavy eyes focused on her.

"It's very scary for you to talk about the past with me," she said quietly, then waited for a moment to see if he would deny it. He did not, so she relaxed a little. "It's painful to talk about the past for any reason, but it's particularly hard to talk about it with me because you lo - oops. That's the forbidden word. Okay. Let's think about what that means a little differently. It's particularly hard for you to talk about the past with me because Violet is very important to you and I am very important to you." She paused again, but he just kept watching her steadily. "Talking about the past is hard, so you wanted to avoid it. If I already knew about the past by talking to other people, or reading newspapers, then you didn't have to talk to me about it."

Grabiner had raised one of his fingers so Amoretta respectfully stopped.

"It's not as if I thought I could put off talking about it forever, just because you had read a newspaper or listened to whatever awful story the headmistress concocted," Grabiner answered immediately. "But it is true. I could always make an excuse to talk about it later. I always intended to talk things over with you, but the time was never right. I couldn't do it."

"And you could always comfort yourself with the idea 'We'll talk about it next time,'" she suggested and he nodded.

"I was always putting it off. So even though I did intend to talk things through with you eventually, Miss Middleton was correct. 'Eventually' might never have come," he said.

"Things are complicated when it comes to me and Violet," Amoretta said and it was simple and a bit childish, but unquestionably true. Grabiner snorted.

"I cannot disagree with that," he said and she smiled.

"You're always afraid that I won't want to be with you," she said thoughtfully. "Sort of like I've been tricked into it, and it's just a matter of time until I realize it and demand to be released. But I haven't been tricked. My eyes are wide open. Axiom: You were afraid to talk about Violet with me because it's going to be painful when we talk about it. You were afraid to talk about Violet with me because talking about it might make me come to the realization that I don't want to be with you."

"Yes," he said slowly. "That's true. I do want you to be with me. That in itself is terrifying. You may choose to leave me. Or worse, you may choose to stay, and everyday I will know that I hurt you. Everyday I will see that I hurt you and I will be unable to stop because I am unable to give you up no matter how much I hurt you. That is why I am a terrible person."

"Perhaps it is frightening because you may actually end up being happy, and happiness is scary for you, so you try to do everything you can to avoid happiness, or at least avoid admitting to happiness. But you know, all of those worries you have are the worries of a generous and conscientious soul," Amoretta pointed out patiently. "If you really were awful, you wouldn't worry about things like that at all," she said. "But you're preoccupied with the idea that you'll hurt me. I think you're carrying around a lot of guilt, and it's always seeping out, all the time. Anyway, although I appreciate that you're concerned about my safety and well-being, those are all my decisions. I get to decide whether or not I want to be with you. You can decided if you want to be with me, but you don't get to decide whether or not I  _should_  be with you. That's my call." She paused weightily as she looked at him steadily. "And you know that."

Grabiner made a rumbling sound in the back of his throat and then threw his arms up.

"All right. I concede. I do know that, although sometimes it is difficult to remember," he growled out.

"Well, we don't always act in accordance with what we know," Amoretta said with a smile. "Sometimes we act according to what we feel."

"You have all the answers, don't you?" he asked tiredly. He felt like she was patiently backing him into a corner.

"Of course I don't," she admitted easily. "That's why we're doing this. Okay. Axiom. Violet and I have some kind of connection, even if it is a whole lot of coincidences." She paused. He did not disagree. "You're worried about the fact that you blur the past and the present together, and that you sometimes think of Violet immediately after I've said or done something."

He stared at her. It was a keen observation. He wasn't sure what to say.

"In fact, when I first suggested that we were going to talk our way through this using a proof, you thought, 'That's something Violet would have thought of,'" she said.

He continued to stare at her.

She gave him a weak smile. "No, it's not some kind of grandiose trap. I know that's what you thought because it's what I thought, when I first thought of the idea. I was sitting down on the rocks, trying to think about things and what I ought to do, and this sort of presented itself. And then I thought, 'She would have loved this idea.' I know that because I've been reading her books. They were like a box of treasures when I found them. I kind of get it now, why you sometimes stop hard after I've said something. It's bizarre, isn't it? It's not as if we're exactly alike. We don't think or feel or do all of the same things. But it's very easy for me to understand her. It's easy for me to understand the way she thinks. I think that's probably why you lo - yikes, I did it again. I think that's probably why you want to be with me. Not because I remind you of Violet, but because it's easy for you to love that sort of person, and that sort of person is just the sort of person I am. I don't think you should feel guilty about it. It's just how things are." She looked at him very steadily. "I have never been offended by the way that you love me."

"You said it," he pointed out. "The forbidden word."

"I meant to say it," she said seriously. "Axiom. You were frightened to talk to me about Violet and thought I already knew besides. Axiom. I was frightened to ask you about Violet and thought it was virtuous to never mention it. Axiom. Neither of us talked about it. Axiom. Both of us stewed and worried and worried until it finally exploded. Axiom. You never meant to hurt me. Axiom. I never meant to hurt you. Axiom. We both hurt each other kind of magnificently. Theorem: it's better to talk about things when they bother us. No matter how afraid we are, talking about it will make it less frightening." She was very quiet as she looked at him. "Do you accept this theorem?"

He looked at her, with her calm face and her eyes puffy from crying, her small body, with the pale hands folded in her lap over the familiar deep indigo of her skirts.

She had done it. She had done it again, turned absolutely everything completely upside down. She had changed the light from red to green when that ought not have been possible. The color green had no longer existed in his world. The concept of moving forward had been deleted from his knowledge base.

He had only red.

Critical stop.

Failure.

Crash with no hope of recovery.

And yet Amoretta had created the  _idea_  of green again, defining it carefully, so he could not object to it, so he would not refuse to recognize it out of sheer perversity. She hadn't simply pulled a rabbit out of a hat. She had altered the fundamental nature of his universe. She was always creating tomorrows, even when he turned his back on the possibility of the future. All the fragmented pieces of their lives: of their pain, and love, and heartbreak, and sorrow, had been carefully arranged into an intelligible picture.

He had been hoist by his own petard and he was glad of it.

He could see the way to go home.

He smiled faintly.

"Yes," he said. "I accept it."

Relief broke over her face and she was soon rubbing at her eyes with small balled up fists and sniffling. Then she couldn't keep it back anymore and had thrown herself into his lap, openly sobbing.

"I'm so happy," she managed between her sobs. "I was so afraid. I was so so so afraid," she cried. "I'm always so afraid that you won't want me anymore."

Grabiner stroked her hair as she cried into his lap and he was forced to brush his own hand across his eyes.

"It's all right," he said. "Everything is all right. I'll always want you."

She looked up then, and her face was red and blotchy from crying. "I'll always want you too!" she insisted passionately and he smiled, weak and tired.

"I could never doubt it," he answered lowly. "Not really. It's practically impossible to doubt you. It would be like doubting gravity."

She cried for quite a while, holding tightly onto his knees, but at last she was only hiccuping and rubbing at her face with her hands.

"Are you all right?" he asked, because she still looked a little morose, even after her crying jag had finished.

"I'm so tired. I wish I were tougher. I  _need_   _to_   _be_  tougher," she lamented. "I sometimes feel like  _I'm_   _the_   _weak_ , and everyone else is the tyranny of evil men," she said with sadness and frustration. Even after having built a bridge over a bottomless chasm by taking step after step into nothingness, having reached the other side and rescued the one she loved best, even after having done all that, she still felt small and very pathetic.

"What?" Grabiner asked in confusion.

"Nothing," Amoretta said, waving him off. "It's Ezekiel 25:17, only it's not. It's sort of Ezekiel 34, but it really isn't - it doesn't matter that much, honestly."

"Amoretta, you're not weak," Grabiner said quietly.

"I hope I'm not," she said, feeling the weight of the whole world on her small round shoulders. She still had such a long way to go. She had to get stronger. They both needed her to get stronger. She felt like she was going to start crying again. "And miles to go before I sleep," she murmured to herself.

Grabiner frowned. "How is it that every poem you love is excessively morbid?" he asked. "Why don't you love poems about daffodils or walking in beauty like the night or even green eggs and ham?" He got to his feet and then helped her to hers. He crossed the study to properly close and lock the door, tripping one of his contingency wards as he did.

She smiled weakly. "I guess it's just part of my nature," she said, then added quietly, "The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity."

"You are unquestionably the best," he said quietly, "And I am certainly the worst because I am filled with passionate intensity. Pequena rosa," he murmured softly as he advanced on her. His voice was low and sweet, his earlier harshness having melted away. "Rosa pequena, a veces, diminuta y desnuda, parece que en una mano mia cabes, que asi voy a cerrarte y llevarte a mi boca," he laid one of his hands on her shoulders then let his fingertips brush up along the line of her neck before catching some of her hair. "But suddenly," he said with warmth, "My feet touch your feet and my mouth your lips: you have grown, pequena rosa. Good lord how you have grown, little may flower." He took a deep breath and said, "I still can't believe that you did all that, that you said all that, that you were able to tell me all that you told me, that you were able to explain it in a way that I could understand, in a way that I would  _accept_ , and all of that after I had hurt you so badly - "

"Hieronymous!" Amoretta interjected in distress, but he shook his head firmly.

"It is true, Amoretta. I know that you're uninterested in blame, but I must be honest, both to you, and to myself. I hurt you badly. I am not ashamed to admit this to you, even though it is certainly shameful and I am shamed," He closed his eyes and added gently, "Let me be honest with you even if I am honest with no one else. I will show you my shame. I will show you my weakness. I will let you be the keeper of it all." His eyes remained closed in contemplation. When he opened them again there was a fire in them and he spoke with conviction. "But what I must tell you is this: you are strong like no one else I have ever known. You have the weight and strength of stone, of the solid earth. That is the plain truth," he said, shaking his head solemnly. "You are not weak, and I respect and admire you. To be honest, there are moments when I am in total awe of you. You make so many difficult things seem so laughably easy - "

"They're not easy!" Amoretta broke in again, fighting back tears. She was trembling all over, overcome with emotion.

"I know they're not," he agreed and his voice was warm and strong as he folded her up in his arms. "I know that it's all terribly difficult for you. I know that it is exhausting. I know that it hurts. But you were right. This is your incredible personal magic, Amoretta, that you can take what is so difficult and hurtful and give it back to me as something I can know and understand, as something I can touch and feel, as something I can hold onto. I thought it was all impossible, that it was a thing that could not be done. I thought I had done a thing I could never atone for. I thought that you had finally come to realize what a grotesque monster I was. I thought that it was impossible that you would continue to love me. But then you carefully took it apart, piece by piece and showed me every little bit you could discover. You refused to let me look away from it. You refused to let me cower in fear and self-loathing. You refused to let me refuse you. That is your incredible strength, Amoretta." He pushed her away from him lightly, so that he could look down at her face. "You've told me many times that you wish to protect me, as I protect you. But I believe that it has been true for many months now that you have been my guardian. You have been fighting doggedly on my behalf, and I appreciate that. Honestly," he added seriously, his voice low and deep. "I do."

Amoretta flushed and ducked her head, trying to look away. "But I haven't really been doing anything - "

"You  _have_ ," he insisted fiercely. "I'm not such a fool that I cannot recognize all that you have done. You are courageous and brave, Amoretta. I am very lucky to have you as my partner, as the person I can always trust to have my back, as I have yours."

"Oh Hieronymous," Amoretta cried weakly, moving close to him again and burying her face in his robes. "Sometimes things are so difficult I feel I can hardly breathe. I love you so much. I love you awfully. No one ever told me that living would be so painful. It is incredible that humans choose to do it, day after day after day."

"We do it because as painful as it is, it damn well beats the alternative," he said with a low chuckle.

As she clung to him, Amoretta let out a great sigh and shook her head hard, as if she were trying to shake out all her doubt and confusion. It did not work.

Grabiner could not help but be worried by her deep sigh and subsequent thrashing.

"Amoretta," he asked softly. "What is it?"

"Nothing," she said, then shook her head again. "Everything," she corrected. "I don't know. Everything just seems - well, it's just hard, it's just  _so_   _hard_. It was so hard being patient all this time. I've been trying my best to be even-tempered and steady and  _strong_ , but it's been exhausting. We've come so far, and I'm proud of how far we've come, honestly, and I  _am_  trying. I'm trying sincerely. One more step. One more step. I just need to be patient for one more step."

"What are you trying to be patient about right now?" Grabiner asked quietly, dreading the answer that he had asked for. It was coming. He knew it was coming, and now they had come to the point where it could no longer be turned aside. He would have to face it. "You proved your theorem magnificently. We should talk to one another about our worries and our fears," he said seriously. "You don't have to fight to be patient any longer. Honestly, you've already been more patient than a choir of saints."

Amoretta trembled, wrapping her arms around herself, and then seemed to at last come to a decision. She ducked her head and studied the floor.

"You know everything about me," Amoretta said tremulously, and then the words tumbled out one after another, as if she feared she would fall completely silent if she stopped for any reason at all. "But I know next to nothing about you. It's not like I tell you things about myself as bribery, because I'm hoping you'll trade your secrets with me, but Hieronymous, I want to know about you. It feels like," she struggled. "It feels like you'll let me bare myself completely. It feels like you'll let me be totally exposed, totally vulnerable, but you don't trust me enough to even unbutton your shirt."

"I don't know everything about you," Grabiner disagreed reflexively, but then he passed his hand in front of his face and felt very tired himself. "But you're right," he said. "That's not because you withhold yourself. You give your secret self freely. I'm sorry I - "

"I do that because I love and trust you," Amoretta broke in, staring up at him with tears at the corners of her eyes, desperate to explain herself, "It comforts me to know that you see the me that there is. It's not like I expect total parity or anything," she said weakly. "You are your own person, and you should decide what you want to share with me on your own terms, but I feel like, I feel like you don't think that it's safe to share  _anything_  with me - "

"What do you mean by that?" Grabiner asked, mildly affronted. "I shared my  _soul_  with you - "

"I know, I know, and I love you for that, just like I love you for dozens, hundreds,  _thousands_  of other reasons, and I  _will_  love you, for a hundred years, for a thousand years, for a hundred thousand years. Time like that doesn't matter to me, not when it comes to you. My love is a perfect element. It doesn't experience radioactive decay," Amoretta protested, waving her hands in the air, making strange motions that she meant to represent atomic decay. It was a little like a pantomime of fireworks. "But there's so much that you keep back from me, and I don't know if it's to protect me, or because you're frightened, or because you've been so hurt - but Hieronymous, I want to share all of that with you. It can be at your own pace. It can be when you're ready. I just wanted you to know, I wanted to tell you myself,  _that I want to know about you, all about you._  I wanted to tell you plainly, in a way that you couldn't misunderstand." She shifted her gaze to the floor again and continued on reluctantly, "You were there at the moment I impressed Stardust Miracle, so you know the name of my grimoire. I know that the name of a grimoire is a private thing, a thing that is only shared through a bond of deep trust - but  _it_   _hurts_   _me_ ," she closed her eyes and shook her head hard as she denied, "I'm sorry if I'm petty and selfish and immature and I don't have the patience that I ought to have, but  _it_   _hurts_   _me_  that I'm still not allowed to know the name of the red book."

Although her eyes were closed and her head was bent, she pointed unerringly at the book in Grabiner's arms: his book of intimate secrets, the one written in ink and his own blood.

She was still speaking, her head bowed, a tremor in her voice, "What do I have to do to prove myself to you? I'll do it, or at least I'll  _try_  to do it, I promise. Just tell me what you want me to do,  _please_."

"Now  _that_  you cannot accuse me of," he denied in consternation. She had caught him flat footed again. Amoretta was nothing if not continually surprising. "Of all the things you might accuse me of in regards to secret keeping, this cannot be one of them," he said with a frown. "That information is already in your possession. You already know what you're asking for. Amoretta, I shared it with you  _already_. It was  _so_   _difficult for me_. You  _can't_  have forgotten it," he insisted, "I told you the name of my grimoire  _weeks_  ago."

"Hieronymous, I don't know!" Amoretta answered in distress and confusion. "What are you talking about? You haven't told me - "

"I have!" he insisted, advancing on her as if his physical presence might have the weight to prove him right on its merits alone. "I have," he repeated himself. "Here. In this place," he insisted, stepping forward as he gestured deliberately at the ground. "I  _hope_  you remember the evening we first made love - "

He had become testy and accusatory and Amoretta stamped her foot. She was ready to go toe-to-toe with him. If he wanted a fight, she was ready to fight like an angry little cat, an angry little cat who just happened to be a pacifist.

"Of course I remember it!" she said crossly. "I am certain that I'll never forget it! But you can't be serious! Are you telling me that you confessed the name of your grimoire while we were - " she stopped, suddenly shy and she got very red as she looked resolutely at the ground. When she spoke again she went on very quietly, soft and reluctant and vulnerable; she was afraid of being mocked. "While we were making love - Hieronymous, if that's when you told me, you might have picked a better time. I was," by this point she had recovered somewhat and could look at him again, if only briefly. She was still very flushed. "I was pretty distracted while you were, when you were - " she struggled again and at last settled on, " _Then_."

"Don't be a goose," Grabiner said dismissively, waving her off with easy nonchalance. His rising temper had been blunted by the sweetly attractive mixture of her vexation and embarrassment, and he couldn't deny a certain amount of smug satisfaction that arose when she confessed to her state of mind. When she got like this he had the distinct desire to eat her up, like she was a delicately sweet dessert, or a girl in a red hood. It was pleasurable simply to watch her, with her flushed face and her eyes downcast, nervously skirting around discussing the particulars of their various physical engagements, but certainly  _remembering_   _and_   _reimagining_   _them_. While he was normally very reserved, Amoretta had the uncanny ability to turn him into a wolf with appetites that were both big and bad.

But still.

No matter how delicious his wife was at this particular moment, they were in the middle of a very serious conversation after an exhausting amount of trauma. Now was a time when they had to communicate clearly,  _with_   _words_ , and he understood that. Honestly, they seemed to have very little difficulty communicating with their bodies, but as fulfilling as these exchanges might have been, he knew that they could not be all of their conversation, nor did he wish for them to be. And truthfully, no matter how appealing she might have been at that moment, he had to be realistic: they were both ill and peaked and ragged. It was not the appropriate moment for passionate embraces. The most erotically charged thing he felt like doing at the moment was patting her on the head.

Still, just because he had a calm, thoughtful hold on the situation didn't mean he was  _dead_.

He frowned and explained, "Of course I didn't tell you while we were making love," and he took decided pleasure in the fact that she squirmed slightly when his mouth moved over the words that she was still not yet accustomed to hearing in their own intimate context. "What an absurd idea. As you noted, at the time we both had other  _preoccupations_. And immediately afterwards we were both exhausted, considering everything that had happened. It wasn't the right moment. So I waited. It was the next day. I went to practice in the side yard. I showed you the tree of fire."

Amoretta's brows drew together and she tilted her head to the side. "Yes," she said slowly. "I mean, I remember all of that. It was wonderful. It was beautiful," she added softly. "I felt so moved, just watching you. You're incredible, you know that?" she asked, and it wasn't clear whether the question was rhetorical. Then she shook her head slightly, and the look on her face was a curious mixture of fondness, nostalgia, pleasure, and admiration. "That's what I thought when I was watching you. You are incredible."

He flushed deeply and coughed, attempting to cover his unease at receiving her honest praise. He turned his back on her and said with a little difficulty, "So then, you  _do_  remember."

"When you painted the tree of fire?" Amoretta asked in confusion. "Of course, but - "

"That's when I told you," Grabiner cut in with a sharp wave of his hand as he wheeled to face her again, agitated. "That's when I told you the name of my grimoire," he said, holding the book up so that she could not mistake his meaning.

"You did?" Amoretta wondered aloud, her brows drawn together again. "I don't - "

"πῦρ ἀείζωον," he said, and the sound nearly exploded out of him. He stopped and drew in a breath before he spoke again, closing his eyes as he did so. "The living fire that burns even in a vacuum. That which is born must change."

He opened his eyes again and silently held the grimoire toward her, beckoning her to accept it.

Her cheeks were still pink as she tentatively took the book from him. "That which is born must change," she repeated softly. "Pyu- Pyur Aeyee - "

"πῦρ ἀείζωον," he repeated steadily, watching her closely as she ran her hands over the cover of the grimoire, down the spine, along the gilt edging. She was getting the feel for it at last, this familiar book that she had first seen on that day when it all began. She was shaping the sound of its meaning with her fingers as well as her mouth.

"Pyur Aeyzoon," she managed, and he nodded once. She ducked her head. "I do remember," she admitted. "I do remember you telling me, only I didn't know  _what_  you were telling me. I didn't understand what you meant. I'm sorry."

There was a still moment between them as they simply looked at one another. His eyes were heavy as he watched her with his grimoire in her arms. But then she had pulled it tight to her chest with one arm and held out her other hand towards him, as if offering him personal salvation. The weight of Stardust Miracle caused her hand to drop slightly as it glimmered into material existence. He took it from her without a word, although he gave her a meaningful look as he did.

She watched him handle it, his long fingers sure and practiced, but he was very gentle, almost reverent, and briefly Amoretta wondered what was running through his mind.

_Is he seeing Stardust Miracle, or is he thinking of Eclipse Starlight?_ she wondered.

But then he raised the grimoire to his mouth and gently kissed the spine of the book. He did this very deliberately, with his eyes on her.

She flushed and felt a little light-headed. It was something that he could do to her seemingly without effort.

_How stupid of me,_ she thought to herself as she watched him.  _How absolutely stupid. It's both, isn't it? He's always thinking of me, and of her, and that's all right isn't it? It is. I know it is. I want him to love her. I'm such an idiot. How is it that I doubt him? How is it that I doubt that he sees me when he never takes his eyes off me? He's always looking at me. He always sees who I am, what I do, how I live. He never looks away, even for a moment. I think he would reorient the world, just to keep me in his sights._

"It was my fault for being unclear," Grabiner said, then moved to put his arms around her, grimoires and all. As he held her, the books both winked out of material existence, one after another, and he could draw her still closer. "You have no reason to apologize. I shouldn't have assumed you'd understand without any context. You are new to everything, and for some reason I cannot keep this fact in my head. It is because you are someone familiar," he said, threading his fingers through her hair at the base of her skull, gently drawing her forward to lay her head against his chest. "It is because you are so well-loved and dear. It is no excuse, but it is the only one I have to offer. I am sorry."

"No, no,  _I'm_  sorry," Amoretta insisted, pushing against his chest in mild panic. She was now desperate to apologize for what she perceived as wrongdoing on her part, "I accused you of not sharing that part of yourself with me, but you already had, and I was just too stupid to realize it - "

Grabiner held her firm and refused to accept or acknowledge her flailing. "You were not 'too stupid,'" he denied, "Given the circumstances, you had no way of knowing what it was that I meant. And while you were mistaken in this specific instance, you are correct that there is much I have kept from you for any number of reasons," he closed his eyes as he admitted, "All of which seem thin and ludicrous in the warm light of evening, with you here at home in my arms. I am sorry, Amoretta," he said again seriously. "I mean that sincerely. I am ready to speak, if you are ready to listen."

Against his chest, Amoretta took a deep breath and nodded. "I'm ready," she said. "Take your time. I'll listen for as long as you want to talk."

"All right," he said. Then he paused and was silent for several minutes. Amoretta was very still, listening to his heartbeat, which was swift and urgent. He was anxious. She could feel his anxiety even without listening to the beat of his blood. At last, he spoke haltingly. "Having said all that, I'm still not sure - that is - I don't know how to begin. I'm such a coward - " he said, letting her loose to bring a hand to his face as he turned away from her. He was trembling.

Amoretta moved to put a hand comfortingly on his back. "You are brave," she corrected gently. "And I love you. I'll protect you. I'll protect you, Hieronymous," she said sincerely, and at that moment she felt very fierce and brave herself. She  _would_  protect him. It was all she wanted to do with herself for the rest of her life. "So please, don't be afraid. It doesn't have to be all at once," she said softly. "You can tell me a little at a time, however you'd like. But we should begin. If we never begin, what sort of story would that be?" she asked with wry affection.

He was still for several more seconds, and then he seemed to get some command of himself because he said, "Then let's play a game."

"A game?" Amoretta asked curiously, tilting her head to the side. He had aroused her curiosity, and now she was a little cat. She was an enthusiastic player of games, after all.

"Yes," Grabiner said, turning back to face her again. "Have you ever played question-question?"

Amoretta thought about it. "It's the game where one person asks a question, and then the other person has to answer with a question, isn't it?" she asked. "And they go back and forth, answering questions with questions. Isn't that it? A round ends when someone answers with something other than a question."

"Exactly," he said, and then led her over to the old sofa, where he sat as if he were a thousand years old, drawing her down after him. "So you ask. Ask whatever it is you want to know, and I'll do my best to answer. We won't think about winning and losing. We won't think about keeping score. We'll just question-question. Is that all right?"

"What do you think?" Amoretta asked with a smile, settling down next to him in the crook of his arm. She was already a little bird comfortably in her nest.

"Very funny," he said wryly, then he took a deep breath. "All right," he said. "Please begin."

It was Amoretta's turn to be silent as she thought about things. It was a strange moment for the both of them. She had so many questions that she wasn't sure where she ought to start. Dozens and dozens of questions had been stilled on her tongue since the moment she had first collided with Grabiner, and these were all questions that she wanted answers to, questions that she had been afraid to ask before now. Now he was a warm presence next to her - real, deliberate, material - and he had promised to answer as best he could. Despite his assurances, she was still a little frightened to ask what it was that she wanted to know. She was afraid that he would run from her, and that she would be left alone.

She did not want to be left alone.

"You won't run away from me?" she asked softly, wrapping her arms around his arm nervously, as if she feared he might bolt even now. She had a very firm grip on the sleeve of his robe.

"I won't run from you," he said gently, curling his captive arm around her and drawing her close. "I'm sorry, Amoretta, that you even had to ask that."

Amoretta relaxed in his embrace, closing her eyes. Weakly, she said, "That's one point to me."

"I told you, we're not keeping score," Grabiner laughed quietly, moving to muss her hair with his free hand.

"I know, I know," she admitted, snuggling against him. She was still for another moment, then she let the question slip out of her softly: sweet and gentle and natural. She asked it as if it were an easy question, like 'what is your favorite color?' She asked, "How do you love Violet?"

It was a simple question. In some ways, it was a very easy question. In Amoretta's mind, it remained  _the_  question, the base of what she needed to understand. Nothing else at all mattered until she could begin her understanding of this.

He stiffened briefly, as if rigor mortis had at last set in on his long dead corpse, and Amoretta worried that she had pushed too far too fast, and hastened to withdraw her question, to ask something easier, something more innocuous, but Grabiner's arm around her tensed, pulling her tightly against his side again, and then he spoke in a quiet voice.

"If I tell you, you won't hate me?" he asked. It was a sad question, pitiful and small. It was something a child might have asked, a child who is used to being treated badly. Grabiner was frightened. He was at least as frightened as she was.

"Never," Amoretta answered automatically, because it was an answer she had under her tongue. "Never ever. I love you, Hieronymous. Trust in my feelings. I'll protect you," she insisted.

Quietly, wryly, he answered her. "That's one point to me."

" _Hieronymous_ ," Amoretta said as she laughed, quiet and close.

"Not a question, but an indictment," Grabiner answered, stroking the top of her head. "But I'll answer as I am obliged." He paused and seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "How do I love Violet? I am touched, you know, that you understand that much even now. She is part of my present as much as you are," he said quietly. "I am very fortunate that you do not demand that I not - " he broke off and shook his head. "But then, I don't think you could do such a thing, given your warm, sweet heart - which is for the best, since I have no way to be, other than I am, other than as you find me. I love her. I will always love her. I love her presently." He paused. "But, even in the past tense - 'How I used to love her' is still a valid question, since I did love her then, just as someday someone will perhaps ask me 'how did you love Amoretta?' and I will be able to provide some answer, however unsatisfying."

"Would you really answer a question like that?" Amoretta wondered.

"If it was you who were asking," Grabiner answered easily, then he turned his thoughts back to her question and endeavored to answer. "I suppose I love her like breathing. It isn't an active thought. It isn't something I consciously do. That was true from that first moment when I met her, although I certainly didn't want to admit that at the time. Violet - she could be a very difficult person. She was always horribly honest, even when you hadn't asked her to be," he paused. "Perhaps particularly when you hadn't asked her to be. She would show me her heart so casually, like it was easy, like it was nothing. And she was white hot - " he stopped again and explained. "When we first met at school, we met as rivals, you know. Or at least, I  _thought_. I thought we met as rivals. I think she had different ideas even then. I was an arrogant little bastard: privileged, gifted, intelligent, and powerfully aware of all of these advantages. I was the first in my year,  _obviously_ , or at least I intended to be. In an ordinary year, I certainly would have been. It is not arrogance to say that. It is plain fact."

"I'm not disputing," Amoretta said with warmth and humor and Grabiner chuckled.

"Always my most ardent supporter," he admitted, then continued his story. "But then there she was, that first day, a charity student in awful clothes, as loud and as vulgar as a little starling, with no name, no manners, no friends, nothing - do you know what the first thing she said to me was?" Grabiner asked, and Amoretta could feel his nostalgia and exasperation all at once.

"What?" she asked, honestly curious.

" _You'll do_ ," it burst out of Grabiner as if he could no longer keep it to himself. "What a little beast she was, even then, at the very beginning, with nothing at all to her name. ' _You'll do_ ,' like she was picking out shoes, or a mangey pony to ride at the seashore. I hadn't said a single word to her, and I didn't intend to either, not until it was absolutely necessary - "

"You were  _horrible_ ," Amoretta laughed. "So stuck up! You didn't even say, 'Hi, how are you?'"

"Of course I didn't!" Grabiner retorted. "And you are absolutely correct. I was the worst sort of child  _imaginable_. But, I might add, she didn't introduce herself either - at least, not until afterward. She just said, 'You'll do.' Then she said, 'I'm Violet,' and I said, 'No, you're  _rude_ ,' because introducing yourself to another person blindly like that is atrocious. I had never met such an ill-behaved person in my life! It was deeply offensive."

"What about Button?" Amoretta asked, giggling into her hand.

"Button was four years old," Grabiner pointed out, rolling his eyes. "And she wasn't so much rude as  _disastrous_. I don't expect you to understand issues of civility, because you're American and therefore uncivil by nature, and besides that, you're very  _peculiar_  - "

"Sometimes I think all English people have brain damage," Amoretta observed. "It's rude to introduce yourself?" Amoretta scoffed. "That doesn't make any sense  _at_   _all_. You know that don't you?"

"It  _is_  rude," Grabiner insisted. "You don't just go introducing yourself to a stranger. It isn't done. It's  _crass_. A person with manners will wait until someone of common acquaintance  _provides_  an introduction."

"But you just said she was a charity student," Amoretta said. "And I know she was a wildseed, so she probably didn't know anybody," she pointed out.

"I'm sure that she didn't," Grabiner agreed. "But that's not relevant. In that situation, the polite thing to do is to remain outside the circle until one is  _invited_."

"But what if one isn't invited?" Amoretta persisted.

"Then one is not wanted," Grabiner said plainly and Amoretta stuck her tongue out.

"English people are awkward," she said frankly. "And dumb."

"Thank you," Grabiner answered dryly. "I'm sure the nation of Shakespeare, Dryden, and Pope appreciates your sentiments."

"Shakespeare pretty much spent all his time making dirty jokes," Amoretta pointed out. "He could make a penis joke at any time, in any place, and it would be  _hilarious_. But all of that? It doesn't mean he wasn't awkward when he had to talk to people face to face. And I think - I mean, I can't say for sure, but I  _think_  - that Pope and Dryden were probably pretty awkward too. Pope was that guy in high school who's kind of strange and really, really smart, but who thinks everyone hates him, so he's really insufferably superior and totally mean to everybody so no one sits with him at lunchtime. He maybe writes a column in the school newspaper about how much everybody sucks, and it's really really funny so everyone reads it, but like, nobody wants to be his friend. Oh, and he wears glasses. Dryden is that guy who's from the wrong side of the tracks but dating a super rich girl and is always getting pushed around because of it. He writes songs, I bet, and plays in a local band, and they're really good, but not quite famous. They need to cut some demo tapes and get some air time. Dryden gets to sit at the popular table during lunch, but has to accept being picked on and gracefully laughing it off every time, even though it always hurts his feelings. When he cries, he cries on the inside. Pope wants to be Dryden's friend by the way, because he really likes the songs that Dryden writes, but he's too suspicious of everybody's motives to ever try and make friends. And Dryden thinks if he tries to befriend Pope he'll just get harassed even more by the in-crowd. I am totally right about this, no question." She paused. "I should really write a story about this."

"You have a very creative way of looking at things, as always, but until you can produce their high school yearbooks, I'm afraid your point remains to be proven," Grabiner said and Amoretta shrugged.

"So what did she say then? When you told her she was rude?" Amoretta asked, leaning toward him in interest. She was very invested in the outcome of this school drama.

"She said, 'Not nearly as rude as you!' Can you imagine the nerve?" Grabiner demanded. "So  _pert_."

"Yeah," Amoretta said with a laugh. "I pretty much can. I bet you were  _furious_." She cleared her throat and then began narrating theatrically, "And thus, as the earliest leaves of autumn scattered," she made a voluminous sweeping gesture with one of her arms, "The two destined rivals had met at school. The girl: very pretty,  _very_  funny. The boy - " she paused and considered. "The boy: plainly in need of the healing powers of friendship - "

"You're magnificently funny yourself," Grabiner noted dryly. "And so you know, I didn't think of her as my rival  _as_   _yet_ ," Grabiner said, plainly dismissive. "I thought she was simply awful and wanted absolutely nothing to do with her."

"Really?" Amoretta asked, giggling into her hand. She gave the impression that she suspected something slightly different.

"Yes,  _really_ ," Grabiner insisted, slapping the sofa for emphasis. Then he rolled his eyes and admitted, "Or at least, that is what I thought at the time. Hindsight paints the scene in different colors. She most definitely had my attention, but I was certain that I was  _aggravated_ , rather than attracted. At that point, I probably was.

"But then I met her in class for the first time: those dark eyes and that wicked smile, and  _her_   _mind_. At first I tried to compete with her," Grabiner said. "I had my pride, and I assure you that it was  _considerable_. But even in the beginning, there was no competing with Violet. She was, even then, without peer." Grabiner shook his head. "It was shameful for me. I had been tutored by the best private teachers from the time I was six years old, and beyond that I worked diligently at learning all I could, magic, and otherwise. I was gifted and I was well aware of that fact. I was enormously proud of the fineness of my brain, of my intelligence, cleverness, and skill."

"You were a know-it-all," Amoretta laughed. "I can't say that much has changed -"

"Well, it takes one to know one," he retorted with the confidence and tact of an adult. Then he tensed again and grew serious. "In any case, I knew how intelligent I was," he said. "It gave me superiority, an assurance that I was better than everyone else: in fact, in truth, in  _actuality_. It also gave me something to hold onto when I had nothing else. I could claim some small amount of self-worth because I was more intelligent than practically everyone on the goddamned planet."

He was breathing hard at the end of his tirade, at the end of his confession, but then he sobered as he took another breath. "But Violet came in with nothing, blind and deaf, an alien in a new and uncertain world, and she still  _ruled_. She was good at everything: pretty, funny, charismatic, athletic. She made friends so easily. People liked her even when they didn't mean to like her. That would have made her a candidate for queen of the school by itself. But it wasn't just that she was popular, and easy to be around. In every single class she set foot in she was  _goddamned_   _brilliant_  - she had this insane ability to grasp things  _intuitively_ , with very little instruction. It wasn't as if she didn't study.  _She_   _did_. Violet was always reading, she was always thinking, she was always considering and solving problems. Her mind was never still." He paused thoughtfully before continuing."She was so precocious. Children crawl before they walk, yes? I never saw Violet crawl. She began by walking, unsteady only in the first moments, and then before an hour had passed she was turning cartwheels and doing tumbling passes. She ran on her two feet until it suddenly occurred to her that she didn't have to, and from that moment on,  _she_   _flew_. By the third week she might have taught all of our classes. A mere mortal with an ordinary brain could not have hoped to keep pace with her."

"Not even Icarus?" Amoretta asked softly and at the mention of the name, Grabiner tensed briefly, but then he sighed.

"Such were the challenges I had to conquer to even have the opportunity to chase after her," Grabiner said slowly. "I had to devise and construct my own wings, metaphorically speaking. But, as I have noted, I was not a child with an  _ordinary_  brain."

Amoretta giggled impudently and Grabiner raised an eyebrow.

"All right, go ahead and make your cheeky little joke," he prompted. "I know what you're thinking."

"Then I don't have to say it," Amoretta teased gently, snuggling against him again.

This simple, familiar touch, a touch of idleness and comfort, made Grabiner relax again.

"But you know," she added conversationally, "I do greatly appreciate your incredibly  _abnormal_  brain." She giggled into her hands and it was a fairy's laugh, sweet, like the sound of bells, or the thrilling shiver of morning dew on bare feet in the dim hour just before dawn. It was the sort of laugh one could not take offense at, even when it was laughed at one's own expense.

He snorted and squeezed her briefly and the continued with his story.

He smiled fondly as he remembered, "Violet was as stubborn as an old horseshoe and as weird and difficult as a bent nail, but then she was also like exotic matter made flesh, as beautiful as Lucifer, rare and strange and impossible, and wonderful and uncanny thoughts were always spilling out of her like milk and honey."

"She sounds amazing," Amoretta said thoughtfully. "It's no wonder that you loved her."

"Well, as I said, I  _didn't_  at first," he said pensively, shaking his head. "Or perhaps more correctly, I didn't understand my feelings very well in the beginning. It was all so difficult." He paused and seemed to be thinking something over. "She was so  _impossible_. I had known her about eight weeks," he said. "The whole school was preparing for the Samhain celebration that evening, and of course as first years we had a part in it. I think we were working together to build offerings out of sticks and leaves. I can't say that I've always excelled at handicrafts - and she just blew in like a storm and commandeered my offering and had it turned around and finished in a moment. She put her hands on mine as she guided my fingers with her words, with that wicked smile of hers. When it was done she grabbed onto my arm and said, 'That's why I love you, Hiero. You're so smart, but you can be an absolute disaster.'" He stopped and looked at Amoretta seriously. "She said it, just like that. Just like it was nothing, like it was completely ordinary, like commenting on the weather. It was my twelfth birthday, and I hadn't heard those words in years. It was - " he struggled. "It was very confusing for me. I didn't think - " he struggled, "That is, it wasn't what I had envisioned for myself. It wasn't part of the lifescript I had written for myself, age eleven. I was to be great, brilliant, powerful, ominous, hard, forbidding, alone, aloof. Her love, it felt strange and foreign and terrifying, although I was far too prideful to admit to being afraid of what she gave to me so nonchalantly."

Then he shook his head again. "But Violet didn't give me the luxury of being confused or frightened," he said. "She was already up and off to the next thing, and naturally, I followed behind her, because I was fascinated to see what she'd try next. Watching her was like watching fireworks. I didn't  _want_  to be captivated, and yet I was. Before I knew it, we were always together. It became something I looked forward to. It became something I wanted, something I needed. That Samhain was the first time she told me that she loved me, but it wasn't the last. She was as motile as lightning, but her heart was constant and unerring. She was always telling me how she felt, in the weirdest and most bizarre circumstances, like it was always occurring to her like a brand new thought, a new secret that demanded to be told."

"It was more than a year before I could answer those words that were so easy for her," he said quietly. "When I finally told her how I felt, she just  _laughed_. Imagine that. It sounds so awful, to have someone laugh at you when you've just confessed all your silly, awful schoolboy feelings, but I was never afraid of being rejected, as hard as the telling was. She laughed because what I said to her made her happy, and that was something I could understand without trying. I knew she wouldn't reject me. She already loved me and had told me so dozens and dozens of times. It was me. I was always me. It was only me. She picked me out of the crowd that first day. She  _knew_ , even then. Her intuition was always astonishing, and in this, in this - it is the greatest honor in my life that she chose me that first day, like a mangy seaside pony, and that she kept choosing me afterward, day after day, year after year." He looked away briefly and seemed to struggle with himself before speaking. "It is the other great honor of my life that you find me to be a suitable partner," he said quietly. "I will never be able to adequately express how much that means to me, and for that, I am profoundly sorry. There simply aren't words," he finished weakly.

Amoretta felt the color rising to her cheeks and ducked her own head shyly. "I'm honored too," she answered softly. "I know that sounds silly: I'm honored that you're honored, we're both honored, everyone is honored - but it is true. Don't feel bad for not being able to say all that you mean. Whether you speak or not, my heart listens. I love you, Hieronymous."

"I know you do," he said with gentle warmth. "I cannot help but know it. Your heart is generous and unguarded. I love that about you, and many other things besides."

Amoretta moved close to him in response, pressing herself against his side briefly. It was a way of embracing him even inside his arms.

Grabiner's voice dropped and when he continued speaking, it was low, hushed. "It is strange to consider, but Violet and I were both alone in the world when we met one another. She had a family, it is true, but she had left them behind, cut herself off from them when she made the Choice and went away to study at the Cradle. Just like her, I had nothing and no one of my own. I had acquaintances among the youth of the other notable houses, but no friends. I spent my holidays alone in a dark, cavernous house with no one but a skeletal housekeeping staff and my tutors. Our lives had been radically different, and yet they had been radically similar. We were both alone and found our only solace in books - in wishing to know and understand. We both felt suffocated and beaten down by our circumstances, crushed by the weight of loneliness and the futility of empty and mindless conversation. We were both desperate for something different, both scrabbling hard in the darkness, like castaways searching for any sign of human contact. We found that 'something different' in one another, and we never looked back."

He curled his arm around Amoretta's back again and began stroking the top of her head, as if she were a little cat.

"And the great depth of our loneliness and personal despair became the weight of our passion and commitment and devotion," he explained. "Because we both had nothing, we became everything to one another. What we had together was so rich and so rare, it was a treasure that could not be fully comprehended by those outside of ourselves. Even now, it is not a thing that outsiders understand. They think whatever it is they think," here he waved his hand dismissively. "But none of them ken the truth: that simple, complicated, magnificently beautiful truth. Against what we had, even the greatest love would have seemed shallow, vague, and uncommitted. We  _knew_  one another. We truly did. I knew her as I knew myself, and I found her much easier to love. I was never really comfortable living as Hieronymous Grabiner. I was never really consciously aware of my discomfort until I saw her for the first time. When I was with Violet, it became possible for me to  _be_. I could be Hieronymous Grabiner without anxiety and discomfort, without anger and superiority."

He stopped stroking her head to consider his next words.

"Everything new that we learned, we tried together," he said. "She was my partner in every sense of the word, and she taught me," he was struggling again, "She taught me so much. She taught me how to be, how to think, how to love, how to live. She taught me that there was a reason to keep breathing, every day, no matter how difficult it got. That's one of the reasons I could never - that I couldn't - " He stopped and was very still for a moment. "I did once," he said soberly, sliding his fingertips up his arm, as if there was an age-old unseen itch. "I did try. Once in the early days when the agony was so fresh and all-consuming, I did try. Then, all I wanted was oblivion. But I was found and - I am glad I was found. I never tried again, after that, no matter how bad things were - it would have shamed her, and that I could never do." He frowned briefly. "I resolved to live in this world," he said. "This ugly, terrible world, barren in the absence of the one star that crowned the heavens. I would live in this world and endure its misery, because that is what she would have done, had she the choice."

He smiled and it was strange and bittersweet. Amoretta held her breath.

"I told you I was a coward," he said and his smile was weak and unsteady. "There are dozens of ways I might have done myself in and been done with it, been done with everything. But I was too much of a coward for anything so final. I didn't have the necessary commitment. I was looking, even then, for an alternative," he said with a pitiful laugh. "They found me half bled out in a bathtub, and that was the end of my pitiful attempted suicide."

"I'm glad you didn't have the necessary commitment," Amoretta said honestly, laying both her hands on his arm and leaning close to him. "If that makes you a coward, then I am glad you're a coward. But I don't think you are. I think it is much braver to choose life than it is to choose death. You are the bravest person I know," she reminded him gently. "I love you very much."

"I know," Grabiner said, closing his eyes for a moment. "Thank you," he said. "It means a great deal that you will listen, that I know you will always listen, no matter what it is that I have to say. I have never shared this with anyone before. I have never cared to," he admitted with a frown. "But you? You I will give all my secrets to, just as I gave you my heart. I will share it all, even the parts I wish I did not have to show to you: the ugly parts, the disgusting parts, all the things that make me vile and wretched. I wish I were a better man. I wish that I could give that truth to you, but I cannot. I am me. I ever have been nothing more than that."

"I don't think they're disgusting," Amoretta assured him. "Or ugly. I don't think you're vile or wretched. I want all of it, Hieronymous. I want all of you. It's all valuable to me. Every part of you is a treasure. I will keep it all safe and warm in my arms." She mimed pulling it close to her chest and holding it, as if his cares were a pillow she could hold against her heart. "Thank you for sharing it with me. That is what takes real courage." She gave him her own sweet smile as she continued. "It is you that I want. Always you. Only you. You are already so great that you fill my heart to bursting. Do not wish you were different than you are. I want no one else besides you, just as you are, just as you ever have been. You are my favorite. Of all the things in this world, you are my favorite."

He captured one of her hands and brought it to his mouth. He held it there, pressed against his lips and was he silent for a moment, thinking. At last, he continued, speaking into her skin so that she felt his warm breath on her palm.

"I married her when I was seventeen. It was the most natural thing in the world, and it was certainly the best idea I had ever had up until that point in time." Grabiner frowned as he continued. "We had both finished six years at the Cradle, and we both left with distinction. My father had already made it abundantly clear that he would not accept our marriage, and I was no longer remotely interested in his approval. When I married Violet, I gave up my name and I took hers. At that moment, I became Hieronymous Lore, and I felt that I had truly found my place in the world. Being grim, forbidding, aloof, solitary, the young archmage of gens Grabiner, that had all flown out the window the moment I realized that I could not ever do without her, no matter the cost. I was at her service. I was always at her service." His smile was wry and wistful, and his voice was filled with warmth and sentiment. He was sharing his intimate secrets with her. She shivered slightly, and pressed close to him again. "We had nothing but what we carried with us when we left school, but Violet already had such celebrity that doors were open everywhere," he explained."I had never done without anything in my life, but I was prepared for hardship. Life with Violet in honorable poverty was worth more than two dozen gilded lifetimes as the miserable, self-absorbed heir to Dernegrave and Shetlock. She and I, we would have made it one way or another, just scraping by on talent alone. I am confident of that. She was doing serious professional research at the time, which is why we went to the Otherworld in the first place. That and the fact that it's easier to live in the Other if you are young and lack both financial resources and conventional employment."

"The Otherworld is really dangerous for young people, isn't it?" Amoretta asked tentatively. He had released her hand. There was the brief brush of his fingertips and then she could pull her arm back to herself. She was treading very lightly, uncertain of this strange, dangerous ground. They were nearing the place where Violet had met her death. It was coming. It could not be avoided. "That's what the headmistress always says," she finished dutifully. It was true. The headmistress was always cautioning them about the Other. It was not a place for children.

"She is not incorrect." Grabiner answered seriously. "When you are in the Other you cannot take anything for granted, least of all your safety. You must always be ready to defend yourself, using lethal force if necessary. It is not a place for children, that is true. If a human child slips sideways and enters the Other unintentionally, then that child will not return  _untouched_. The children who are spirited away rarely return at all, but if they do return, they almost never return as humans. They have become something different."

Then he shook his head.

"You have to understand. Violet and I, nether of us were children," he explained. "We were old in our shoes, old on the ground. We were blooded and competent and capable, with years of experience in combat together. I held a Rank A license even at that time. Violet had obliterated the Rank S examination - " he broke off briefly and offered his hands up. "That immense amount of strength, effortlessly controlled - frankly, she was a  _force of nature_. Rather than she being frightened of the Otherworld, the Otherworld ought to have been frightened  _of her._  She was very nearly an archwitch  _at seventeen_. She was monstrous, honestly. What I mean to say is this: we were both aware of the risks and prepared to face them. We could handle ourselves  _very_   _well_  at that point."

"What was Violet studying?" Amoretta asked thoughtfully. She had some ideas but -

"She was looking for information about the lost grimoires of the White Empress," he said with an absent wave of his hand, then seemed to recollect that she was not witchreared. "Ah, the White Empress - "

"Is a magnificently old witch," Amoretta supplied immediately. "The greatest witch in the world, if she's still alive. Headmistress Potsdam's teacher was one of the White Empress's students!"

"That's what they say, although that in itself might be a tall tale. It is likely that Felicity Shaw had a learned mentor, since she did develop Pentachromatic magic herself, and creating a new spell paradigm requires a deep knowledge of the systems that are already in place. But you must understand, the White Empress is something of a fairy tale figure at this point, like Jeanne d'Arc, or Gretel," Grabiner agreed with another idle wave of his hand. "At this late date, the witch or witches who inspired the legends of the White Empress are certainly dead. Her omnipresence as the once-and-future-witch is just part of her myth. The witches of North America like to embellish legends and having such a great legend of their own appeals to their sensibilities."

"Because the White Empress is supposed to be here, right? In North America, I mean." Grabiner nodded and it was Amoretta's turn to shrug. "I think it's more interesting to imagine that she's alive somewhere out there," she said. "I want to believe," she said soulfully. "It would be really cool if it were true! What if she's someone we know?!"

"And who might you suggest?" Grabiner asked dryly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"How about Professor Finch," Amoretta said with a giggle. "He's really old right?"

"I'll let him know that you suspect his secret," Grabiner said, rolling his eyes. "Of course, believe whatever you like," he said with an exaggerated shrug. "This is, as you are most certainly aware, a free country."

Then he was silent for several minutes. He was thinking hard.

"Hieronymous, if you don't want to talk about, to talk about the, um,  _the_   _incident_ , I want you to know that I'm willing to wait," Amoretta said haltingly, but Grabiner shook his head.

"No," he said seriously. "It's time for me to talk about it." He closed his eyes briefly before opening them again. "I'm ready," he said, then pulled her close to him again, giving her a short, intense squeeze, as if reassuring himself of her material existence. "Thank you for your love and concern, but I will manage."

Amoretta's fingers drifted up his sleeve again and she began to slowly stroke his arm, smooth, sweet, and soft. She hummed tunelessly as she did. It was a gentle comfort, and reminded him more than any words might that this girl beside him was his home. It was enough to sweep him away with warm nostalgia, with visions of her sitting on the floor near the dresser playing cards with Kavus, or standing in the kitchens at Iris Academy with flour all up her arms and in a streak across her forehead. The bricks and mortar didn't matter, nor did the stone. That was not how his home was laid, because his home was not material place. The hearth he where he warmed his tired heart was not one with a fire built of sticks and straw. It was simpler than that, and more complicated. He felt safe at her side. She was his garden and his sanctuary. Wherever she left her small footprints, he followed beside her, and that place became their home.

He would take what she had freely given. He would keep it carefully, like a flower pressed between the pages of a book.

After a few moments of solace, he began to speak again.

"It was hot that day," he said slowly. "We were crossing Mare Veld. The suns were burning like fire in the sky. I can remember sweating in the car, the shirt sticking to my back. It's strange, the things you remember so acutely. We were heading toward a confluence of the veld and the great library. Generally it's both easier and safer to travel outside of the library rather than inside it."

Amoretta didn't stop him to ask about the fact that he had said sun _s_ , or related riding in a car across a magic veld toward a library it wasn't safe to travel through. Some things she knew. Other things she didn't. She simply listened.

"We had been singing together. She had improvised a tape deck according to the Rail Finch school of automotive engineering, and there were all these cassettes scattered across the floorboards. I was in charge of picking and changing the cassettes because she was driving. She loved music - the awfulest stuff, really, but she loved it, and because she loved it I loved it, because I loved her loving it. I was still rummaging around on the floor - Violet was the first to notice that the veld had become quiet," he shook his head. "The veld is  _never_  quiet." He frowned. "The birds and animals had scattered. They hadn't cared a whit about Violet howling Bon Jovi songs at the top of her lungs. Something else had frightened them off. She cut hard on the wheel, but she wasn't fast enough. In that moment I could swear before heaven that we were hit with dragonfire. She lost control of the car. The damn thing nearly exploded on top of us, but we got clear. And then it was on us. It was on us so heavily that it felt like the sky was crashing down on our heads. I almost threw up. Violet did throw up, coughing and spitting from the smoke and the heaviness. It was hard to think. It was hard to do anything," he said. He was very grim. "It was hard to exist."

"Antimagic field," Amoretta said softly, and she shivered, remembering how it had felt to her that evening she had visited Donald when he had been jailed. She never wanted to feel that way again. It felt like slowly suffocating. It felt like your life was ebbing away, your blood draining, drop by drop.

"Yes," he answered. "The first thing she did was try to throw up a shield around us both, because we were both certain we were under attack. The spell didn't take. Nothing took. We knew we were in an antimagic field then. We knew that if we didn't get out of it, we'd end up dead. Violet ran. I ran after her. I was almost always her vanguard, and as you know, in full retreat the vanguard covers the rear where the pursuit is likely to be most hotly contested. Violet was a genius in final position." He snorted and clarified. "She was a genius at everything she tried, but she was notably brilliant in final position." He raised a knuckle to his lips thoughtfully. "We expected to hit the edge of the field in a dozen steps. Antimagic fields are difficult to hold in the best of circumstances, but we were on the open veld. It isn't possible to hold a field of any size out in a wide open space like that, not for any amount of time. Diameter, height, duration - one of these measures had to be as thin as a sliver. We needed to find the narrow edge and break through it, out into safety, out where we could defend ourselves." He closed his eyes. "But we did not make it out of the antimagic field in a dozen steps, or two dozen steps, or four dozen steps, or a hundred steps. We didn't make it out at all. We could not find the narrow edge of the field." He opened his eyes and Amoretta felt him tense. "And that was when the drums began," he said.

"The drums?" Amoretta asked, her fingers tightening on his sleeve again.

"The drums of the war party," he said quietly, and she pressed her teeth against her lower lip. "There was a ridge running parallel to us, and all at once we could see them silhouetted against the sun: goblins. There were hundreds of them. It was a full war host, with cavalry and infantry and artillery. We had no magic. We couldn't even strike a spark, either of us. All we could rely on were conventional weapons. They came down on us like thunder. By the time I had drawn my sword and put myself between Violet and the mob, they were after us."

Amoretta started, and she immediately tugged on his arm. "Wait. What?" she asked. "Your sword? You have a sword?"

His smile flickered. "Yes," he said. "I did at the time. I have carried one at various points, and I am tolerably acquainted with its use." He paused and raised an eyebrow. "Now don't go entertaining romantic visions of swashbuckling witches slashing their initials into their foes to the rising cheers of a recently liberated crowd. It is practical to have both conventional and augmented weapons when one travels through dangerous territory, and hand-to-hand weapons are particularly useful for a vanguard who has to forcibly break the defenses of a heavily shielded opponent, since more force can be brought to bear through direct point-to-point contact." Even now he thought and acted as an educator, ready to carefully explain himself, ready to guide her interest and help direct her inquiry. "I also had two side arms," he said. "But I couldn't have reloaded quickly enough given the numbers that were falling on us. For that, I would have needed a very large automatic weapon to lay down suppressive fire, and suffice to say  _I did not have one._  But I knew I could rely upon Violet's shooting, as I always had. She was a very accurate shot even without any augmentations, and generally favored firearms as her conventional weapons of choice. And once we were through the antimagic field - not even the most ardent prayers would have saved those goblins from the kind of wrath that Violet could visit upon them. She was a devil on the battlefield, a devil arrayed in starlight and majesty. She was a devil with all the beatific charms of an angel when she was fighting, or perhaps, an angel with the devil's sublime genius for destruction."

He studied the ground.

"We had to get out of the field," he said. "We both knew we were running for our lives. We both kept running, and I kept myself between her and the filthy mess of them. Once we were clear of the field, we knew we could fight them off. We had to get clear. We both knew that our lives depended on getting clear. I killed dozens of goblins as we ran." His mouth was turned down and he was very grim. "It was gory and the smell and the screams were awful. None of those goblins died easily or well. I had to flick the blood from my sword again and again because it kept getting slick and difficult to hold onto. When you're in a situation like that you have to let your body move according to muscle memory while your mind is thinking as many steps ahead as the time horizon allows." He frowned and shook his head. "I was desperate to keep them off of her. I  _was_  keeping them off of her, somehow, some way, by pushing myself far past my own limits, running and fighting until it felt as if my heart might burst from the strain. My blood was cold as it sloshed through my veins, as cold as deep seawater. It's as if I could feel it, everywhere, all at once: the sound, the throbbing,  _the_   _drums_. It made me  _shiver_. My blood tasted like pure adrenaline. Then I could no longer hear the sound of anything because silence was roaring in my ears as I cut down goblin after goblin after goblin. It was survival, moment to moment -  _but we were surviving_.  _We_   _were_   _surviving_."

He was so tense that he was shivering even now, his voice low and fierce. But then he was still.

And when he spoke again, his voice nothing but a whisper.

"And then there was the howling," he said. "That terrible howling that only comes from worg wolves, and I knew we were cut off. The cavalry had circled us. We tried to flank them and withdraw, but we were on foot with no functioning augmentations. Just imagine it," he murmured, with a sick little sound that might have been a nervous giggle. "A girl and a boy, spattered over in red, in blood and gore, hand in sweaty, grasping hand, scrambling desperately to outrun a pack of wolves bigger than tigers. The ground seemed to shake as they chased us. Then boom." His hand flicked open, miming an explosion. "Part of the ground nearby was simply gone. Artillery bombardment during a charge. We had no chance. From the beginning we had no chance, not without magic, but we were desperate to stay alive." He shook his head. "They closed on us. The weight of the field was still crushing us, and then we were swept up in a chaos of swinging blades and clubs. The cavalry had overrun us, and the infantry was upon us at the moment we were run down. It was a bloody swill of confusion and those flabby, stringy little bodies of the goblin infantry. It was madness. I tried to cut a swath through them, to get to Violet, but there were so many. There were so many." He had drawn into himself again, tense and coiled, as if he were trying to make himself as small as possible. Amoretta held his hand in both of hers.

"We were overtaken," he said very quietly. "I failed to protect her. Even at the last she was fighting, fighting as hard as she could. I remember her staggering, the blood seeping out of her ears, and I felt it crumbling all around us, like a house of cards falling in on itself: the antimagic field. She had done something  _insane_. What, I have no earthly idea, but she had done something that had collapsed the field from the inside, and doing it had ruptured her eardrums and damn near killed her. I could feel the fire building up inside of me, white hot, forge hot, and I knew that she had done it. I knew that we would survive. She smiled at me, that wise and wicked smile she had," And then his voice cracked as he brought his hand to his mouth again, "And that's when I saw her skull crushed in. I couldn't get to her. There was no way I could have been at her side. There was no time. It was a troll on a worg the size of a draft horse. He nearly took her head off with his first blow. I knew that, I knew that there was nothing," he admitted, blinking back tears. "There was nothing. She was dead. In that moment, she was gone, and I had nothing. She was dead." He covered his face with his hands, pulling away from her. "They piled on me after that, and I don't remember anything else afterwards. When I came to my senses, I was already a prisoner, chained to a bed in a dirty little cell. I never saw Violet again."

Amoretta swallowed hard, and then asked a tentative question. "Is it possible then, that she might still be alive somewhere? I'm sorry, I know that's a terrible question - "

"It's all right," he answered gently. "It is a reasonable question to ask." He closed his eyes. "She is certainly dead. No human could have survived the injury she sustained, even if they had received immediate medical attention, which she did not. It was a fatal blow and probably an instantaneous death. Whatever I may think of them, the magistrates did investigate the scene thoroughly. They recovered some of her bones, which they presented in court as proof of her death. They had been verified as her bones. I independently verified them myself, after the trial."

"So there's no chance?" Amoretta asked weakly, and he shook his head.

"I wish I could believe otherwise, but I cannot," he said. "I have been investigating her death for years. I have never uncovered any evidence that gives me hope for her continued existence. Everything I have discovered confirms her death."

Amoretta squeezed his hand once, then leaned down to brush her lips against his knuckles briefly. He stroked her hair absently, and when she drew back she saw that he was staring up at the ceiling abstractly.

"It was after I was ransomed that I saw the star," he said quietly.

"The star?" she asked, and her intimate sympathy was washed over by a wave of powerful curiosity. If she had had ears on the top of her head like Dinah, they would have perked.

"There was a new star in the sky. They called it the Peerless Star, or otherwise the Witching Star," he said. "Some people just call it 'Violet,' like they expect it to answer them. They say it's her star. It's plain enough to see with the naked eye in the Otherworld. It's a bright enough star that it can be seen in the daytime. Like the library, it is omnipresent. You can see it in the sky no matter your location."

"That's what Madame Belle meant when she said you ought to take me stargazing," she breathed.

"Yes," he said. "The stars above Revane are set to mirror those above Brittany, so you have never had the opportunity to see the Witching Star. I'll show it to you tonight."

Amoretta nodded, overcome with the solemnity of the promise. Then she thought about it.

"Why did that happen, though?" she asked. "The star being born, I mean. That's totally strange, isn't it?"

"It's bizarre," he agreed. "I have no idea. No one has any idea, although there are any number of theories, most so ridiculously farfetched that they're laughable and not one with even a single shred of evidence to support it. It is an unnatural phenomenon, even among witches. No one can begin to explain it. We simply know that the star flared into being - or at the very least became visible - around the time of her death."

"Then it's a great mystery," Amoretta said, folding her hands in front of her chest.

"Yes," he agreed. "It is."

Amoretta was silent for a moment, thinking. "The enormous antimagic field you encountered: that can't be explained by modern magical theory. It ought to be impossible. That's probably one of the major reasons no one believes you about it."

"Yes," Grabiner agreed tiredly, "And yet that is certainly what we both experienced."

"Yeah, I'm not discounting that," Amoretta answered seriously. "But what I mean is, that's something that seems like magic even to a witch. That makes it a great mystery, just like the star."

"You are not incorrect," he said simply. "I have been attempting to unravel the nature of that great mystery myself for the past fourteen years. If I can understand the nature of the mystery then it is possible I will be able to trace it to its source."

Amoretta laughed weakly. "And then I fell into your lap and suddenly you had even more great mysteries to contend with," she said. "You just piled that up on your to-do list, like it was nothing: 'research the true nature of mortal souls so that an otherwise fatal wound can be doctored away.' And then I don't even  _have_  a mortal soul, probably. You said yourself that I'm very, very strange. That's not even figuring in my weird connection to Violet, which may or may not be totally imaginary. It's like I'm a  _walking_  great mystery." She threw up her hands. "You know, I really like playing girl detective, but you've been carrying out a serious investigation for years. That makes you an  _ace_ detective." She folded her hands in front of herself and smiled shyly. "I hope you'll let me act as your assistant from now on. I want to help you, Hieronymous, with everything. I know I'm young and I still have lots and lots to learn, but this is actually a thing I'm pretty good at, I think. At the very least I can help you organize what you  _do_  know."

He ruffled her hair briefly. "I am grateful for the help," he said with his own small smile, then he snorted. "If and when we do unravel all of these great mysteries, we will certainly both be mages of the highest caliber, on the level of the greatest archwitches who have ever lived."

"Well," Amoretta said with a laugh. "If anybody can do it, then we can. I mean, I seem to be some kind of genius, and you've got a super abnormal brain."

"I can say  _without_   _question_  that your brain is also extremely abnormal," he said dryly.

"I never said otherwise," she giggled, giving him one of her foley effect twinkling winks. It was if the entire room were suddenly lit by magic lamps and diffused by pixie dust. That was the sort of general effect Amoretta had on her environment.

It did not go unnoticed.

"Good lord," Grabiner said with a low, private laugh. "You are such an impossible little idiot. I hope you understand that I am wholly devoted to you," he paused. "And your idiocy," he finished.

"Yeah," she said with frank confidence. "I know you are. For my part, I really like how you're super grim and serious and bad at talking to people. I'm also a big fan of your knowledge of ropes and knot tying."

He laughed again, a bit more freely. "You little monster," he said. "I will honestly make good on my threat of locking you in a cupboard."

"Only if you lock yourself in the cupboard with me," she giggled, and it was certainly a giggle  _with_   _intent_.

"I hate to rain on your parade, ma petite Justine, but that's not going to be as tense and erotic as you imagine. It's going to be mostly stuffy and uncomfortable," he noted idly. "You will complain about me stepping on your feet. I will end up accidentally kneed in the groin. It never fails."

"You sound like you're talking from experience," Amoretta said with keen interest.

"That's because I am talking from experience," he said dryly. "And I am now taller and heavier than I was at fifteen. You may weigh roughly the same as an anemic duck and be conveniently portable, but I am a grown man. I'm not locking us into any cupboards in the near future, unless I have absolutely no other recourse for privacy. I would like to add, if we attempted to engage in this sort of indiscreet shenanigan on school grounds, I am certain that the headmistress would wait for the most picturesque moment - when we were most embarrassingly involved with one another - and then promptly throw open the door with an innocent claim that she needed to find a stapler, or was looking for more toilet paper, or something similar. If she could arrange it, the yearbook photographer would be there to document the heartwarming event for all time. Then you would have absolutely no ability to hide behind the nondescript words 'Not Shown.'"

"That would be an  _interesting_ experience," Amoretta laughed nervously, a flush creeping up into her cheeks. She was beginning to feel hot. She was certainly already bothered, but unfortunately not in the clandestined sense. She was feeling bothered, as in, she was feeling harassed. She was feeling harassed by the headmistress, who was not even currently on the premises.

That was really sort of remarkable all by itself.

"You'd die on the spot," Grabiner predicted with an eyeroll. "Not even heroic measures would be enough to save your life. I have developed some tolerance to her harassment, being as I have had to live with it for some years now. But you, my darling, you are still young and tender. I have no doubt that you would promptly expire."

"Well, yes," Amoretta admitted, pressing her teeth against her lower lip as she smiled. "That's probably spot on. And I mean, I can totally see the headmistress doing that, even with the yearbook photographer and all. All right then, I defer to your judgement," she said with a nod.

"Excellent call," he said dryly.

That bit of levity settled, Amoretta looked thoughtfully at the ring on her finger and then tentatively asked, "The violets that Lord and Lady Something-or-other sent, were they a trap? I mean, were they sent with the intention of causing one or the other of us harm?"

Grabiner grunted and it was a noncommittal sound. "Aylesbury," he said. "Lord and Lady Aylesbury. And more specifically, I believe these were sent by Lord Aylesbury, Sir Richard Marvell. The other present marked Aylesbury, the clock? That was certainly from Honoria, his wife. I doubt she had any knowledge that he sent the other 'gift.' Nonny can be a bit high strung, but it's not in her nature to be purposefully cruel. As to the question of malice - the answer to that is complicated and depends on what you mean by 'intention to harm.' The violets were sent to me as a threat and an accusation. There's not really any question about that. He meant for them to hurt me, but he meant for them to hurt me  _psychologically_. I'm sure he hoped you would also see them and be disturbed, and perhaps begin to question your relationship with me. That was lagniappe. The violets were intended as an act of psychological warfare, not  _literal_  warfare. There were no spells, enchantments, or hexes involved in this unfortunate incident. The violets weren't cursed. They were filled with an immense amount of negative emotional energy. That latent energy is what caused the horrible reaction you experienced when you attempted an empathetic analysis. It was as if you reached out and grabbed a live electric wire. The vast power of his hateful feelings was concentrated in the statuette, and it hit you all at once. You're naturally very sensitive and empathetic ordinarily, even without magical augmentation. I'm just glad the event didn't cause any lasting damage. The spell buffered a great deal of the surge, but it couldn't offload all of it. There was simply too much."

"Why does he hate you so much?" Amoretta asked, frowning slightly.

"Because I had what he wanted desperately, what he never got to lay his grasping fingers on," Grabiner said grimly. "Marvell has been in love with Violet since the moment he met her." He made a vague motion with one of his hands. "We all went to school together, you see: Marvell, Honoria, Violet, and I. We were all in the same year, all part of the same social set. Marvell was obsessed with Violet from the beginning, but he was too stupid to admit that until well after she was involved with me. He has always been convinced that I seduced her, when the opposite is much closer to the truth - although I must confess: I was certainly a willing participant. Besides that," Grabiner said as he shrugged, "Violet was never interested in being Marvell's lover, only his friend. Violet was committed to me from the first, and her commitment never wavered. He hated me for that."

Grabiner snorted then paused and corrected himself. "He still hates me for that. When Violet was among the living, he forced himself to behave with civility, or at least the outward appearance of civility. Since her death he has had no reason to even vaguely disguise his disgust and contempt. He seems to think that I stole the woman who ought to have been his, and therefore stole the whole of his life." He made another brief wave of his hand. "Of course, Marvell was never particularly interested in what Violet thought, what Violet wanted. I'm sure he thinks that he was perfectly conscientious and attentive, but he never wanted to listen to her dreams. He wanted her to listen to his dreams. I'm sure that he believes even now that he knew what was best for her and her happiness, and that they would have been perfectly happy together if I hadn't gotten in their way. He had a plan for their splendid life together. The problem is, Violet never wanted to have anything to do with it," Grabiner said, shaking her head, then he leaned back against the sofa and looked up at the ceiling. "But the power of human delusion can be very great, even in a person who is otherwise very calm and controlled." He looked down at her again seriously. "Perhaps particularly so in such a character," he said. "Marvell has always been very keen on control and perfection. I'm sure one of the reasons he was so obsessed with Violet is that she defied categorization and never acted according to anyone's script but her own. Bodies are often powerfully attracted to that which they lack themselves."

"He sounds . . . difficult," Amoretta said diplomatically.

"Difficult is too kind a word," Grabiner said grimly. "I have known him since we were both children. His father and my father are both peers of the realm. Inevitably, that means our families move in the same claustrophobically small social circles. It's perhaps even worse there than it is here. The witchfolk of Britain are very insular, and class cleaves to class." He said with a shrug. "Marvell has always been a cold-blooded viper, hidebound, by the book, and intoxicated by authority. I have known him to be deliberately cruel, as he was in sending this obscene 'gift.' But he is no man's fool. He is very adept at disguising his cruelty when he chooses to do so. And he may be cold, but Marvell's got a chilly sort of charisma. He had his own fan club while we were in school," Grabiner said with a dismissive wave. "Not that he ever encouraged them. He didn't have to. They were encouraged by the fact that he discouraged them. Some people have perverse tastes," he said with a frown, and Amoretta squirmed slightly and flushed, but a Grabiner was too lost in thought to notice. "And he plays the noblesse oblige card very well," he said. "Marvell seems like the sort of person who ought to have authority. He moves with grace and subtlety and tact. These are the seven veils he wears to conceal the fact that he is  _completely_   _ruthless_. He's the sort of person who can smile cooly at you while signing the orders for your execution. He'd throw his own grandmother in prison if it suited his ends. In fact, his appellation recalls this: Richard Marvell, the Discreet Knife. He's organized, ambitious, and brutal, and this has made him very successful in his adult life. He's charismatic, handsome, wealthy, well-educated, and he has a silver tongue. He also wields a great deal of influence. He is a powerful figure. I'm certain that he remains popular with women even now," Grabiner said with a shrug. "But none of those glittering accolades and accomplishments can change the fundamental truth of his life: Marvell was never the person that Violet wanted. He blames me for that. He also blames me for her death."

All at once Amoretta shivered, from the tip of her tailbone all the way to the top of her spine, as if she had received another jolt from a live wire. Her mind seemed very clear and still and pieces that had been at odds with one another fell into place easily and  _she_   _understood_.

"Mack the Knife," Amoretta said, her eyes widening. She had connected a real flesh and blood person with one of the strange entities in Violet's rambling commonplace books. "Richard Marvell is Mack the Knife."

"Yes," Grabiner said, his mouth set to a thin line. "That's what Violet called him. She started calling him that the first week of school and it stuck. It's the source of his appellation. I can't say it's the most flattering depiction, but he's very vain about it. I'm sure he wouldn't be so keen on it if hadn't come from her, but Marvell enshrined her like a madonna when she was living. Then, after her death she ascended to Godhood in his own personal religion. I haven't spoken to him in years, but everything about this indicates my past experience with him remains true. He is a leopard who has no interest in changing his spots. That's why he sent the violets," Grabiner explained. "Violet is still with him - or at least, his own  _image_  of Violet is still with him. She remains a real and material part of his life, just as the Violet of my heart remains a part of mine. In having the audacity to marry again, I committed the most mortal of sins in his eyes. He is accusing me of having forgotten her, and at the same time reminding me that he has not and that he never will." He laughed and it was a short, harsh sound. "He is ever faithful to her memory, despite the fact that he was never involved with her in the first place and has been married to another woman for ten years now. Poor Nonny. She has always deserved better than him, but there's no accounting for taste," he said with a shrug. "The primary difference between our two sorry patches of existence is that I actually had a relationship with Violet. He clings only to his selfish, ludicrous fantasies."

"Did Violet give you your appellation too?" Amoretta asked with sympathy. "It seems like she was always giving names to everybody."

"No," Grabiner said. "That came courtesy of the headmaster," he said, sounding exasperated. "Violet always called me - "

"Hiero," Amoretta answered absently, because she was thinking about Marvell, and Grabiner's time at Newton's Cradle. "I know."

Grabiner stared at her. She flushed as she realized he was staring.

"I've read her commonplace books, remember?" she said awkwardly.

Grabiner gave his head a sharp toss, as if he could shake the wool out of his skull.

"Sorry," he said. "It's only - I haven't - no one has called me that in a very long time," he explained, wringing one of his hands out very slowly. "It was just startling to hear it spoken. I hear it in my head all the time. I hear it in empty rooms when I'm alone," he confessed, and his voice was low and dark. "I hear the way she shaped my name."

"I'm sorry," Amoretta apologized sincerely, feeling panicky. "I never meant to upset you. I wasn't thinking. I won't say it again, I promise."

Grabiner shook his head. "It's fine," he said. "You may call me that if you like, whenever you like. It is your exclusive privilege," he promised. "You don't have to force yourself either to say it or not say it. Say it when it feels right. Otherwise, call me as you always have. No one else says my name quite the way you do."

She covered her warm cheeks with her palms. "Hieronymous!" she said, clearly deep in the throes of keen embarrassment.

"Be mindful of when you use that tone, darling," he warned lowly. "It is always  _powerfully_   _compelling_."

Then he got to his feet and then offered her his hand.

"Come along then," he said. "And I'll show you the stars."

* * *

 

The dew was heavy in the grass in the side yard. He led her out past the little court that she and Ellen had flattened in preparation for playing tennis as part of their extracurricular activities at Grabiner's school. He led her out through the grass, to the far end of the field, where it almost ran into the thin treeline that stood as polite camouflage for one of the boundaries of the capsule world of Revane. Here the sun rose as commanded and also set as commanded. The stars would show themselves not as the turning of the universe decreed, but rather according to the will of the master of the house.

The night air was a little chilly. Amoretta could smell the promise of rain. She pulled the wrap she wore a little more closely around her shoulders. Grabiner had not called a light up, but led her through the dark by the hand. When she shivered, he turned back to look at her and smiled.

"You can already feel the storm coming on, can't you?" he asked quietly. "I can. I set it to go a little while ago. It seems like the sort of evening to have rain, don't you think? It'll remain clear until we finish our stargazing," he promised.

Amoretta nodded. "Rain has a healing quality about it, a making new. Running water holds no enchantment," she quoted and he chuckled.

"Neither does falling water," he agreed.

He stopped at last and Amoretta could see the dark smudges of tree shadows in the dim light ahead. He carefully spread the blanket he carried on the ground and beckoned her to sit. She sat.

"I feel like I ought to have brought a box of sandwiches," she said with a mild laugh.

"I did bring a box of sandwiches, if you'd like one," Grabiner admitted. "It occurred to me that neither of us had eaten since lunch. There's also tea with milk. It's in the thermos."

"You seem to have thought of everything," she said peaceably.

"I can be moderately conscientious every once in awhile," he agreed.

"I promise not to eat your chicken and avocado sandwiches," she swore faithfully as she unwrapped her own sandwich.

"For that reason and many others you are a jewel among women," he agreed, then turned his attention to the sky.

He spoke briefly to the open air, and Amoretta realized that he was not casting a spell so much as adjusting some element of the demi-plane's permanent systems. She recognized the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates he began with. He was verifying the Brittany coordinates then, perhaps shunting them off to a different field, so that they could be easily retrieved later. And then he began a long string of coordinates. That was absolute location. He was giving a coordinate in absolute location.

He turned to look down on her and his smile flickered very briefly, and then he was serious.

"I've set the sky to show as the night sky shows above Shetlock. It's one of the few absolute locations I know by heart," he said. "And perhaps Shetlock is a fitting setting for us after this long day of turmoil."

Amoretta nodded and turned her eyes up to look at the familiar sky above. The stars of the summer triangle reigned bright and serene.

"Confirm the change in coordinates for the demisphere," Grabiner said clearly, and Amoretta's eyes widened as a ripple seemed to spread across the sky with smooth serenity, and the heavens reoriented themselves.

Once everything was still again, Amoretta found herself looking at a night sky she did not recognize.

A thick band of stars surged like a river running across the dome of heaven. It was humbling even to look at it, and to imagine the worlds and worlds and worlds those millions of tiny, brilliant lights represented. Clouds of interstellar dust were lit up pink and purple, like the turgid, milky currents of the stellar river.

Amoretta let out a long, slow breath.

"What is that?" she asked. "I want to say it's - "

"It's the Milky Way," Grabiner agreed with a smile. "This is how the Milky Way appears from Shetlock."

"It's beautiful," she said softly, and he nodded.

"Yes," he said. "It is."

She stood up from the blanket and craned her head back as far as she could, taking in the splendor of the night sky from every angle as she slowly turned in circles. All at once she stopped and pointed. There was a band of pitch blackness that seemed to cut across the brilliant, jeweled sky.

"What's that?" she asked.

"It's the great library," Grabiner answered. "What you're seeing is the shape of the Mirabillis Library as it cuts across the sky. You can always see the library in the Other, no matter where you are, but it is not always particularly easy to get to it."

"Is it a mirage?" Amoretta asked, craning her neck back as she studied it.

"No," Grabiner said, shaking his head. "It's not. It is actually there. You can make an approach and land, although you'll still need to find a point of egress. The library near Shetlock is in the free sky. There is no terrestrial land about it. If you were to see it in the light of day from the edge of Shetlock proper, what you would see is an infinite tower, spiraling up to infinity, and spiraling down just as far. There are some who believe that the Mirabilis Library is the staff on which this universe rotates. It is a very mysterious place."

"No wonder Violet wanted to explore it," Amoretta said as she studied the dark shape of the library tower. Then she tilted her head slightly and pointed again.

There was a brilliant star, shining magenta-red in the night sky. It was visible past the bulk of the tower.

"That's it," she said. "That's the Peerless Star, isn't it?"

Grabiner was silent for a moment and then said, "It is."

"How did I know that?" she wondered, turning to look at him.

He shook his head.

"I don't know," he said.

"I don't know either," she said, and then they stared at one another quietly for a while, then looked up at the stars again.

Grabiner was silent for several seconds as they both looked up at the sky, but at last he spoke.

"When you impressed Stardust Miracle, the reason I lost myself, the reason I shut you out - it was because I was afraid. I will admit that." He swallowed hard. "I  _must_  admit that. I realized at that moment what I could not see before. If you do have some real, material connection to Violet - if it exists outside of shadows and coincidences - then there is a possibility that she had to die before you could be properly born," he said quietly. "That was not something I had mentally prepared myself for, that piece of causality." He closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. "None of that is your fault. You did nothing wrong. You cannot be responsible for something that happened before you came to be. You have always been wonderful, at every moment, in all the moments that I have known and loved you. I am profoundly sorry for how I behaved that day. No matter how shocking that revelation was to me, it was a moment when you badly needed my support. It was a moment when you ought to have had the whole of my support. You had already deigned to share an intimate moment with me." He opened his eyes again and focused them on her as he covered his heart with his hand. "I am sorry, Amoretta. I am very sorry," he said very slowly, with dignity and sincerity. "I know that I can't make up for my behavior with just a few paltry words, so I will endeavor from this point on to try and make up for what I've done with actions instead. I love you. I will always love you. I'm sorry that I hurt you."

"Your apology is accepted," Amoretta said gently. "It was all very hard at the time, but I do think you understand that." She closed her eyes and tilted her head back for a moment. "Thinking about Violet, it's all so complicated, isn't it? If it is true, if I do have a connection to her, then it's possible that someone killed her expressly so that I could be born." She opened her eyes a sliver to look at him through her dark lashes. "You thought of that," Amoretta said quietly, opening her eyes slowly so that she could look at him soberly. "You'd thought of that already: that the person you loved the most in the world might have been murdered for the express purpose of bringing me about. That's what Madame Belle meant when she said that you ought to suspect conspiracy."

Grabiner's mouth had become thin because he'd pressed his lips together, but he nodded. "It is something that I was forced to consider again at that time."

Amoretta leaned back again, looking up at the dark sky. "Violet was murdered. I was born. And now you find yourself married to me, just as you were married to her. That's the causality we're looking at here, isn't it? That's the impossible coincidence. If I am here beside you, it cannot be by chance."

"We don't know for certain - " he started but she cut him off.

"Hieronymous, you told me that you don't believe I'm human," she said steadily, and he nodded silently in confirmation. "I'm beginning to realize that I might not have been born in a very human way. You're always very careful about the words you use when you talk about it."

His mouth flickered up at the corner briefly as he said, "This from the girl who told me that she was torn from the thigh of Zeus." He shook his head briefly. "I don't believe you were born in the way most human children are born, no," he said. "Given your semi-divine nature, that seems clear. What is less clear is how and why. I don't know the answers to those questions, Amoretta, although I am working to understand what it is necessary that I understand."

She smiled briefly herself. "Thank you, Hieronymous. Thank you for all of it."

He raised one of his hands and frowned.

"There are many many 'ifs' that remain uncertain and hazy, Amoretta," he said. "We have some conjecture, but not a great deal of solid information. To be perfectly honest, I don't even have any particularly good guesses about most of the mysteries with which we find ourselves confronted. It is dangerous to let ourselves be led along by fancy too easily. It is dangerous to infer causality where there is none, to see patterns of our own invention. We will find ourselves drowned in a bog, the victims of will-o-wisps. It seems that you might have some relationship to Violet, but we don't really have any idea of what that relationship might be. Even now, I am still a little reluctant to countenance the idea, although it is not a new one, at least not for me. I had already recognized some of the strange coincidences that seemed to connect you and Violet together even in the first days of our marriage. That afternoon when I turned your face up to look at it and saw your eyes: that deep, strange indigo that I thought I would never see again - There were other things, things you said, things you did, things you didn't say and didn't do. It was a little like experiencing a haunting. I had a difficult time determining how much of it was real and how much of it was just my stilted perception. But when I saw the grimoire - there could be no question. Until you named it, I was certain it was Eclipse Starlight."

"But it wasn't," she pointed out.

"It wasn't," he agreed. "I want you to know, I was honest when I said that I don't suspect conspiracy when it comes to you," he said seriously. "Violet was certainly murdered. I cannot question that. We were drawn into a trap we could not escape from. I still don't know why she was targeted, why we were both targeted. My investigation is ongoing. But I want you to understand that I have no reason to believe that your existence was the direct cause of Violet's death."

"What if that someday turns out to be true?" Amoretta asked. "I hope it isn't true. I don't want it to be true. But I think it would be really foolish not to consider that it might be. I don't want to be blindsided again, Hieronymous," she said, frowning.

"I understand," he answered steadily. He was silent for a moment, then said, "If that is what is ultimately revealed to me, then I will accept it. You cannot be culpable when it comes to Violet's death, no matter the nature of your relationship to her. It remains true that you cannot have been the person or among the persons who arranged the circumstances that lead to her death. That is the only way in which your involvement would have any bearing on my feelings toward you." Here he took a moment to magnificently roll his eyes. "I am confident enough in my judgement of your character to conclude that you are not a murderess, let alone an infant murderess." At last he smiled briefly. "Does that put your mind at ease?" he asked.

Amoretta laughed weakly and then nodded. She stared up at the sky for a long, still moment.

"Do you think that I'm a reincarnation?" Amoretta asked quietly. "Of Violet, I mean. Do you think I am Violet, come again? One star in the sky," she said, raising an arm over her head and twirling her wand between her fingers, "And another on the ground."

He was still for a moment, but it was only a moment.

"I don't really care if you are or not," he said simply, curling his arm around her back. "Certainly, I would have given anything to have made such an oath with Violet while she still lived - the gimmal oath. The oath to bind souls. But we were young. When you are young it is difficult to see death, even when it stalks behind you. I thought - we both thought - that we had time, time to spare. All the time in the world. But we did not," he took her small hand and held it up so that it glimmered faintly in the starlight. "And certainly it would be a darkly humorous twist of fate if I ended up bound to you as some karmic answer to that great treasure that was lost, that was stolen from me. But I don't believe in karma, and I think that we make our own fate. But even if the grand cosmic conspiracy turned out to be true, and we discovered that the machinations of the universe had drawn us together again recompense, it wouldn't matter to me in the least. I love you. I love you as you are. I love you singly, as your own self. You seem to be," he faltered. "You seem to be carrying something of Violet with you, in some way, as if you've got a bit of her hidden in your pocket. I can't say that I understand it, but whatever your connection to the past, whatever that might be, if it is material and not simply an impossible string of coincidences, it isn't important to me beyond its relevance as an element of your own self. You are Amoretta. If some part of you was Violet once, it isn't now. It is you." He drew her hand to his mouth and brushed his lips against her knuckles. "It is you. You are my wife, Marianne Amoretta Grabiner, and I recognize you. This place beside me is your place, and it belongs only to you."

Amoretta bit her lip and asked her next question hesitantly, because she wasn't sure it was a question that ought to be asked.

"And if Violet knocked on the door tomorrow, if she were suddenly here, what then?" she asked, shifting uncomfortably on her feet. "I know that's a cruel question. I'm sorry for asking. It's just, it's just - "

He laid his hand on the top of her head and lightly ruffled her hair.

"You have a right to ask that question," he said gently and she trembled. His eyes grew distant and he turned his face up to look at the stars, watching the heavens turn ever-so-slowly. At last, he said, "If she suddenly appeared at the door tomorrow, I'd ask if she minded standing on the other side of me."

There was absolute silence for a long, still moment, and inside the hard shell of his soul, Grabiner  _cringed_ , because he had just shared a deep, uncomfortable secret with her, a secret that he was only now beginning to accept. He had taken the chance, taken the leap to tell her because she had had the courage to ask, and he felt he could not but respond to that courage with courage of his own.

But perhaps he had miscalculated. Perhaps he had said something that could not be unsaid. Perhaps -

But then Amoretta had burst out laughing, drawing both her hands to her mouth as she doubled over wheezing. She laughed until she was breathless, and when she looked up at him her cheeks were rosy and her eyes were lit with humor and affection. She was alive with laughter and the pleasure of being.

"Just like that?" Amoretta asked, and the laugh was still dancing in her voice.

"Just like that," he agreed levelly, and then gave her his own brief smile.

"Oh, Hieronymous, I love you," she said, throwing her arms around him and holding onto him tightly. "You are an odious nincompoop, you know that? Your nincompoopery is so great it can be only be represented by an uncountable infinity. You are a  _gloriously magnificent idiot_. I love you for it. I love you for all those reasons, and a thousand million more."

"That's what she would have said, had I said the same to her," he said simply and quietly, and Amoretta drew back slightly and looked at him seriously.

"Really?" Amoretta asked, genuinely curious.

"Yes," Grabiner answered, leaning down to pull her close to him. "You would have gotten along with one another splendidly, I think."

"I know we would have," Amoretta said, and her laugh was weak and filled with relief, like a fawn collapsing on its haunches after its terrifying first steps. "I know that now. I'm sorry," she began hesitantly. "I'm sorry that I can't meet her."

"Me too." he murmured into her hair. He held her tightly for a long moment, drawing her up to stand on her tiptoes, and then he released her, letting her down so that she settled lightly on her feet again.

"But our life is rich enough as it is," he admitted, giving her his warm, private smile. "I have so many things to be thankful for, I haven't a list long enough to record them all."

"I'm lucky," she reminded him, and he chuckled.

"We both are," he amended.

The wind had risen, and it whipped the hair around their cheeks. The storm was not long off now. He looked at her, lit by an infinity of distant stars, and then he reached out to brush his fingers through her hair.

"And since to look at things in bloom, fifty springs are little room, to the woodlands I will go, to see the hawthorne hung with snow," he spoke softly, then he tilted his head slightly to the side. "Time is fleeting," he said, and he was very serious. "Even for a wizard who can refashion elements of reality to suit his whims, time is fleeting. Even with more than a score of lifetimes in front of us, time is fleeting. You will die. I will die. One day, a day lost among countless thousands, will be our last day. One hour will be our last hour. We will both be fodder for worms," he said solemnly. "This hour is precious. This minute is precious. It will never come again. And so even though we both wept and screamed over the course of this day, it is a treasure. It is the rarest of treasures, and I have graven it on my heart," he said, folding his hand across his chest as if he were making a vow or pledging his allegiance. "Death is coming for all of us, inexorably. Time is always limited, but what I have is yours."

"It will always be mine," she agreed with her own strange smile. "And I will lift the cup and drink it all until the last drop. When I do run to the end of my rope, I will never leave anyone even a moment to consider that I did anything other than live my life to the fullest. If my life is a match, then I will strike it and strike it and strike it until I can strike it no longer. All of that belongs to you, Hieronymous. It's what I have to give."

"And a richer tribute no man could ask for," he said as he leaned down to brush his lips against her forehead. "And now, let's watch the stars awhile, before the rain."

And they watched the stars, the brilliant ribbon river of light, and they ate their sandwiches, and they listened to the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll need a bit of time before the next chapter comes out, since I haven't started it beyond notes. Thank you all for being patient, and for being so supportive. I love you all!


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